LAWS
Plato
348 BCE
Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Plato (~428-~348 BC) — One of the greatest and most influential Greek
philosophers, he was a disciple of Socrates and the teacher of
Aristotle. Most of his works are written dialogues, many with Socrates
as the main character. Plato founded a school of philosophy known as the
Academy. Laws (348 BC) — Plato concentrated his declining powers on
recording a code of laws which he hoped some Hellenic state might
sanction. The Laws were thought to have been in the process of
publication at the time of his death.
Table Of Contents
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE................................. 3
BOOK I ................................................................... 4
BOOK II ................................................................. 29
BOOK III ................................................................ 51
BOOK IV................................................................. 77
BOOK V.................................................................. 96
BOOK VI................................................................. 116
BOOK VII................................................................ 147
BOOK VIII............................................................... 182
BOOK IX................................................................. 204
BOOK X.................................................................. 232
BOOK XI................................................................. 258
BOOK XII................................................................ 283
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE:
An ATHENIAN STRANGER
CLEINIAS, a Cretan;
MEGILLUS, a Lacedaemonian
BOOK I
Athenian Stranger. Tell me, Strangers, is a God or some man supposed to
be the author of your laws?
Cleinias. A God, Stranger; in very truth a, God: among us Cretans he is
said to have been Zeus, but in Lacedaemon, whence our friend here comes,
I believe they would say that Apollo is their lawgiver: would they not,
Megillus?
Megillus. Certainly.
Ath. And do you, Cleinias, believe, as Homer tells, that every ninth
year Minos went to converse with his Olympian sire, and was inspired by
him to make laws for your cities?
Cle. Yes, that is our tradition; and there was Rhadamanthus, a brother
of his, with whose name you are familiar; he is reputed to have been the
justest of men, and we Cretans are of opinion that he earned this
reputation from his righteous administration of justice when he was
alive.
Ath. Yes, and a noble reputation it was, worthy of a son of Zeus. As you
and Megillus have been trained in these institutions, I dare say that
you will not be unwilling to give an account of your government and
laws; on our way we can pass the time pleasantly in about them, for I am
told that the distance from Cnosus to the cave and temple of Zeus is
considerable; and doubtless there are shady places under the lofty
trees, which will protect us from this scorching sun. Being no longer
young, we may often stop to rest beneath them, and get over the whole
journey without difficulty, beguiling the time by conversation.
Cle. Yes, Stranger, and if we proceed onward we shall come to groves of
cypresses, which are of rare height and beauty, and there are green
meadows, in which we may repose and converse.
Ath. Very good.
Cle. Very good, indeed; and still better when we see them; let us move
on cheerily.
Ath. I am willing — And first, I want to know why the law has ordained
that you shall have common meals and gymnastic exercises, and wear arms.
Cle. I think, Stranger, that the aim of our institutions is easily
intelligible to any one. Look at the character of our country: Crete is
not like Thessaly, a large plain; and for this reason they have horsemen
in Thessaly, and we have runners — the inequality of the ground in our
country is more adapted to locomotion on foot; but then, if you have
runners you must have light arms — no one can carry a heavy weight when
running, and bows and arrows are convenient because they are light. Now
all these regulations have been made with a view to war, and the
legislator appears to me to have looked to this in all his arrangements:
the common meals, if I am not mistaken, were instituted by him for a
similar reason, because he saw that while they are in the field the
citizens are by the nature of the case compelled to take their meals
together for the sake of mutual protection. He seems to me to have
thought the world foolish in not understanding that all are always at
war with one another; and if in war there ought to be common meals and
certain persons regularly appointed under others to protect an army,
they should be continued in peace. For what men in general term peace
would be said by him to be only a name; in reality every city is in a
natural state of war with every other, not indeed proclaimed by heralds,
but everlasting. And if you look closely, you will find that this was
the intention of the Cretan legislator; all institutions, private as
well as public, were arranged by him with a view to war; in giving them
he was under the impression that no possessions or institutions are of
any value to him who is defeated in battle; for all the good things of
the conquered pass into the hands of the conquerors.
Ath. You appear to me, Stranger, to have been thoroughly trained in the
Cretan institutions, and to be well informed about them; will you tell
me a little more explicitly what is the principle of government which
you would lay down? You seem to imagine that a well governed state ought
to be so ordered as to conquer all other states in war: am I right in
supposing this to be your meaning?
Cle. Certainly; and our Lacedaemonian friend, if I am not mistaken, will
agree with me.
Meg. Why, my good friend, how could any Lacedaemonian say anything else?
Ath. And is what you say applicable only to states, or also to villages?
Cle. To both alike.
Ath. The case is the same?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And in the village will there be the same war of family against
family, and of individual against individual?
Cle. The same.
Ath. And should each man conceive himself to be his own enemy: what
shall we say?
Cle. O Athenian Stranger — inhabitant of Attica I will not call you, for
you seem to deserve rather to be named after the goddess herself,
because you go back to first principles you have thrown a light upon the
argument, and will now be better able to understand what I was just
saying — that all men are publicly one another’s enemies, and each man
privately his own.
(Ath. My good sir, what do you mean?) —
Cle. ... Moreover, there is a victory and defeat — the first and best of
victories, the lowest and worst of defeats — which each man gains or
sustains at the hands, not of another, but of himself; this shows that
there is a war against ourselves going on within every one of us.
Ath. Let us now reverse the order of the argument: Seeing that every
individual is either his own superior or his own inferior, may we say
that there is the same principle in the house, the village, and the
state?
Cle. You mean that in each of them there is a principle of superiority
or inferiority to self?
Ath. Yes.
Cle. You are quite right in asking the question, for there certainly is
such a principle, and above all in states; and the state in which the
better citizens win a victory over the mob and over the inferior classes
may be truly said to be better than itself, and may be justly praised,
where such a victory is gained, or censured in the opposite case.
Ath. Whether the better is ever really conquered by the worse, is a
question which requires more discussion, and may be therefore left for
the present. But I now quite understand your meaning when you say that
citizens who are of the same race and live in the same cities may
unjustly conspire, and having the superiority in numbers may overcome
and enslave the few just; and when they prevail, the state may be truly
called its own inferior and therefore bad; and when they are defeated,
its own superior and therefore good.
Cle. Your remark, Stranger, is a paradox, and yet we cannot possibly
deny it.
Ath. Here is another case for consideration; — in a family there may be
several brothers, who are the offspring of a single pair; very possibly
the majority of them may be unjust, and the just may be in a minority.
Cle. Very possibly.
Ath. And you and I ought not to raise a question of words as to whether
this family and household are rightly said to be superior when they
conquer, and inferior when they are conquered; for we are not now
considering what may or may not be the proper or customary way of
speaking, but we are considering the natural principles of right and
wrong in laws.
Cle. What you say, Stranger, is most true.
Meg. Quite excellent, in my opinion, as far as we have gone.
Ath. Again; might there not be a judge over these brethren, of whom we
were speaking?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Now, which would be the better judge — one who destroyed the bad
and appointed the good to govern themselves; or one who, while allowing
the good to govern, let the bad live, and made them voluntarily submit?
Or third, I suppose, in the scale of excellence might be placed a judge,
who, finding the family distracted, not only did not destroy any one,
but reconciled them to one another for ever after, and gave them laws
which they mutually observed, and was able to keep them friends.
Cle. The last would be by far the best sort of judge and legislator.
Ath. And yet the aim of all the laws which he gave would be the reverse
of war.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And will he who constitutes the state and orders the life of man
have in view external war, or that kind of intestine war called civil,
which no one, if he could prevent, would like to have occurring in his
own state; and when occurring, every one would wish to be quit of as
soon as possible?
Cle. He would have the latter chiefly in view.
Ath. And would he prefer that this civil war should be terminated by the
destruction of one of the parties, and by the victory of the other, or
that peace and friendship should be re-established, and that, being
reconciled, they should give their attention to foreign enemies?
Cle. Every one would desire the latter in the case of his own state.
Ath. And would not that also be the desire of the legislator?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And would not every one always make laws for the sake of the best?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. But war, whether external or civil, is not the best, and the need
of either is to be deprecated; but peace with one another, and good
will, are best. Nor is the victory of the state over itself to be
regarded as a really good thing, but as a necessity; a man might as well
say that the body was in the best state when sick and purged by
medicine, forgetting that there is also a state of the body which needs
no purge. And in like manner no one can be a true statesman, whether he
aims at the happiness of the individual or state, who looks only, or
first of all, to external warfare; nor will he ever be a sound
legislator who orders peace for the sake of war, and not war for the
sake of peace.
Cle. I suppose that there is truth, Stranger, in that remark of yours;
and yet I am greatly mistaken if war is not the entire aim and object of
our own institutions, and also of the Lacedaemonian.
Ath. I dare say; but there is no reason why we should rudely quarrel
with one another about your legislators, instead of gently questioning
them, seeing that both we and they are equally in earnest.
Please follow me and the argument closely: And first I will put forward
Tyrtaeus, an Athenian by birth, but also a Spartan citizen, who of all
men was most eager about war: Well, he says, “I sing not, I care not,
about any man, even if he were the richest of men, and possessed every
good (and then he gives a whole list of them), if he be not at all times
a brave warrior.” I imagine that you, too, must have heard his poems;
our Lacedaemonian friend has probably heard more than enough of them.
Meg. Very true.
Cle. And they have found their way from Lacedaemon to Crete.
Ath. Come now and let us all join in asking this question of Tyrtaeus: O
most divine poet, we will say to him, the excellent praise which you
have bestowed on those who excel in war sufficiently proves that you are
wise and good, and I and Megillus and Cleinias of Cnosus do, as I
believe, entirely agree with you. But we should like to be quite sure
that we are speaking of the same men; tell us, then, do you agree with
us in thinking that there are two kinds of war; or what would you say? A
far inferior man to Tyrtaeus would have no difficulty in replying quite
truly, that war is of two kinds one which is universally called civil
war, and is as we were just now saying, of all wars the worst; the
other, as we should all admit, in which we fall out with other nations
who are of a different race, is a far milder form of warfare.
Cle. Certainly, far milder.
Ath. Well, now, when you praise and blame war in this high-flown strain,
whom are you praising or blaming, and to which kind of war are you
referring? I suppose that you must mean foreign war, if I am to judge
from expressions of yours in which you say that you abominate those Who
refuse to look upon fields of blood, and will not draw near and strike
at their enemies. — And we shall naturally go on to say to him — You,
Tyrtaeus, as it seems, praise those who distinguish themselves in
external and foreign war; and he must admit this.
Cle. Evidently.
Ath. They are good; but we say that there are still better men whose
virtue is displayed in the greatest of all battles. And we too have a
poet whom we summon as a witness, Theognis, citizen of Megara in Sicily:
Cyrnus, he who is faithful in a civil broil is worth his weight in gold
and silver. — And such an one is far better, as we affirm, than the
other in a more difficult kind of war, much in the same degree as
justice and temperance and wisdom, when united with courage, are better
than courage only; for a man cannot be faithful and good in civil strife
without having all virtue. But in the war of which Tyrtaeus speaks, many
a mercenary soldier will take his stand and be ready to die at his post,
and yet they are generally and almost without exception insolent,
unjust, violent men, and the most senseless of human beings. You will
ask what the conclusion is, and what I am seeking to prove: I maintain
that the divine legislator of Crete, like any other who is worthy of
consideration, will always and above all things in making laws have
regard to the greatest virtue; which, according to Theognis, is loyalty
in the hour of danger, and may be truly called perfect justice. Whereas,
that virtue which Tyrtaeus highly praises is well enough, and was
praised by the poet at the right time, yet in place and dignity may be
said to be only fourth rate.
Cle. Stranger, we are degrading our inspired lawgiver to a rank which is
far beneath him.
Ath. Nay, I think that we degrade not him but ourselves, if we imagine
that Lycurgus and Minos laid down laws both in Lacedaemon and Crete
mainly with a view to war.
Cle. What ought we to say then?
Ath. What truth and what justice require of us, if I am not mistaken,
when speaking in behalf of divine excellence; — at the legislator when
making his laws had in view not a part only, and this the lowest part of
virtue, but all virtue, and that he devised classes of laws answering to
the kinds of virtue; not in the way in which modern inventors of laws
make the classes, for they only investigate and offer laws whenever a
want is felt, and one man has a class of laws about allotments and
heiresses, another about assaults; others about ten thousand other such
matters. But we maintain that the right way of examining into laws is to
proceed as we have now done, and I admired the spirit of your
exposition; for you were quite right in beginning with virtue, and
saying that this was the aim of the giver of the law, but I thought that
you went wrong when you added that all his legislation had a view only
to a part, and the least part of virtue, and this called forth my
subsequent remarks. Will you allow me then to explain how I should have
liked to have heard you expound the matter?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. You ought to have said, Stranger — The Cretan laws are with reason
famous among the Hellenes; for they fulfil the object of laws, which is
to make those who use them happy; and they confer every sort of good.
Now goods are of two kinds: there are human and there are divine goods,
and the human hang upon the divine; and the state which attains the
greater, at the same time acquires the less, or, not having the greater,
has neither. Of the lesser goods the first is health, the second beauty,
the third strength, including swiftness in running and bodily agility
generally, and the fourth is wealth, not the blind god [Pluto], but one
who is keen of sight, if only he has wisdom for his companion. For
wisdom is chief and leader of the divine dass of goods, and next follows
temperance; and from the union of these two with courage springs
justice, and fourth in the scale of virtue is courage.
All these naturally take precedence of the other goods, and this is the
order in which the legislator must place them, and after them he will
enjoin the rest of his ordinances on the citizens with a view to these,
the human looking to the divine, and the divine looking to their leader
mind. Some of his ordinances will relate to contracts of marriage which
they make one with another, and then to the procreation and education of
children, both male and female; the duty of the lawgiver will be to take
charge of his citizens, in youth and age, and at every time of life, and
to give them punishments and rewards; and in reference to all their
intercourse with one another, he ought to consider their pains and
pleasures and desires, and the vehemence of all their passions; he
should keep a watch over them, and blame and praise them rightly by the
mouth of the laws themselves. Also with regard to anger and terror, and
the other perturbations of the soul, which arise out of misfortune, and
the deliverances from them which prosperity brings, and the experiences
which come to men in diseases, or in war, or poverty, or the opposite of
these; in all these states he should determine and teach what is the
good and evil of the condition of each. In the next place, the
legislator has to be careful how the citizens make their money and in
what way they spend it, and to have an eye to their mutual contracts and
dissolutions of contracts, whether voluntary or involuntary: he should
see how they order all this, and consider where justice as well as
injustice is found or is wanting in their several dealings with one
another; and honour those who obey the law, and impose fixed penalties
on those who disobey, until the round of civil life is ended, and the
time has come for the consideration of the proper funeral rites and
honours of the dead. And the lawgiver reviewing his work, will appoint
guardians to preside over these things — some who walk by intelligence,
others by true opinion only, and then mind will bind together all his
ordinances and show them to be in harmony with temperance and justice,
and not with wealth or ambition.
This is the spirit, Stranger, in which I was and am desirous that you
should pursue the subject. And I want to know the nature of all these
things, and how they are arranged in the laws of Zeus, as they are
termed, and in those of the Pythian Apollo, which Minos and Lycurgus
gave; and how the order of them is discovered to his eyes, who has
experience in laws gained either by study or habit, although they are
far from being self-evident to the rest of mankind like ourselves.
Cle. How shall we proceed, Stranger?
Ath. I think that we must begin again as before, and first consider the
habit of courage; and then we will go on and discuss another and then
another form of virtue, if you please. In this way we shall have a model
of the whole; and with these and similar discourses we will beguile the
way. And when we have gone through all the virtues, we will show, by the
grace of God, that the institutions of which I was speaking look to
virtue.
Meg. Very good; and suppose that you first criticize this praiser of
Zeus and the laws of Crete.
Ath. I will try to criticize you and myself, as well as him, for the
argument is a common concern. Tell me — were not first the syssitia, and
secondly the gymnasia, invented by your legislator with a view to war?
Meg. Yes.
Ath. And what comes third, and what fourth? For that, I think, is the
sort of enumeration which ought to be made of the remaining parts of
virtue, no matter whether you call them parts or what their name is,
provided the meaning is clear.
Meg. Then I, or any other Lacedaemonian, would reply that hunting is
third in order.
Ath. Let us see if we can discover what comes fourth and fifth.
Meg. I think that I can get as far as the fouth head, which is the
frequent endurance of pain, exhibited among us Spartans in certain
hand-to-hand fights; also in stealing with the prospect of getting a
good beating; there is, too, the so-called Crypteia, or secret service,
in which wonderful endurance is shown — our people wander over the whole
country by day and by night, and even in winter have not a shoe to their
foot, and are without beds to lie upon, and have to attend upon
themselves. Marvellous, too, is the endurance which our citizens show in
their naked exercises, contending against the violent summer heat; and
there are many similar practices, to speak of which in detail would be
endless.
Ath. Excellent, O Lacedaemonian Stranger. But how ought we to define
courage? Is it to be regarded only as a combat against fears and pains,
or also against desires and pleasures, and against flatteries; which
exercise such a tremendous power, that they make the hearts even of
respectable citizens to melt like wax?
Meg. I should say the latter.
Ath. In what preceded, as you will remember, our Cnosian friend was
speaking of a man or a city being inferior to themselves: Were you not,
Cleinias?
Cle. I was.
Ath. Now, which is in the truest sense inferior, the man who is overcome
by pleasure or by pain?
Cle. I should say the man who is overcome by pleasure; for all men deem
him to be inferior in a more disgraceful sense, than the other who is
overcome by pain.
Ath. But surely the lawgivers of Crete and Lacedaemon have not
legislated for a courage which is lame of one leg, able only to meet
attacks which come from the left, but impotent against the insidious
flatteries which come from the right?
Cle. Able to meet both, I should say.
Ath. Then let me once more ask, what institutions have you in either of
your states which give a taste of pleasures, and do not avoid them any
more than they avoid pains; but which set a person in the midst of them,
and compel or induce him by the prospect of reward to get the better of
them? Where is an ordinance about pleasure similar to that about pain to
be found in your laws? Tell me what there is of this nature among you:
What is there which makes your citizen equally brave against pleasure
and pain, conquering what they ought to conquer, and superior to the
enemies who are most dangerous and nearest home?
Meg. I was able to tell you, Stranger, many laws which were directed
against pain; but I do not know that I can point out any great or
obvious examples of similar institutions which are concerned with
pleasure; there are some lesser provisions, however, which I might
mention.
Cle. Neither can I show anything of that sort which is at all equally
prominent in the Cretan laws.
Ath. No wonder, my dear friends; and if, as is very likely, in our
search after the true and good, one of us may have to censure the laws
of the others, we must not be offended, but take kindly what another
says.
Cle. You are quite right, Athenian Stranger, and we will do as you say.
Ath. At our time of life, Cleinias, there should be no feeling of
irritation.
Cle. Certainly not.
Ath. I will not at present determine whether he who censures the Cretan
or Lacedaemonian polities is right or wrong. But I believe that I can
tell better than either of you what the many say about them.
For assuming that you have reasonably good laws, one of the best of them
will be the law forbidding any young men to enquire which of them are
right or wrong; but with one mouth and one voice they must all agree
that the laws are all good, for they came from God; and any one who says
the contrary is not to be listened to. But an old man who remarks any
defect in your laws may communicate his observation to a ruler or to an
equal in years when no young man is present.
Cle. Exactly so, Stranger; and like a diviner, although not there at the
time, you seem to me quite to have hit the meaning of the legislator,
and to say what is most true.
Ath. As there are no young men present, and the legislator has given old
men free licence, there will be no impropriety in our discussing these
very matters now that we are alone.
Cle. True. And therefore you may be as free as you like in your censure
of our laws, for there is no discredit in knowing what is wrong; he who
receives what is said in a generous and friendly spirit will be all the
better for it.
Ath. Very good; however, I am not going to say anything against your
laws until to the best of my ability I have examined them, but I am
going to raise doubts about them. For you are the only people known to
us, whether Greek or barbarian, whom the legislator commanded to eschew
all great pleasures and amusements and never to touch them; whereas in
the matter of pains or fears which we have just been discussing, he
thought that they who from infancy had always avoided pains and fears
and sorrows, when they were compelled to face them would run away from
those who were hardened in them, and would become their subjects. Now
the legislator ought to have considered that this was equally true of
pleasure; he should have said to himself, that if our citizens are from
their youth upward unacquainted with the greatest pleasures, and unused
to endure amid the temptations of pleasure, and are not disciplined to
refrain from all things evil, the sweet feeling of pleasure will
overcome them just as fear would overcome the former class; and in
another, and even a worse manner, they will be the slaves of those who
are able to endure amid pleasures, and have had the opportunity of
enjoying them, they being often the worst of mankind. One half of their
souls will be a slave, the other half free; and they will not be worthy
to be called in the true sense men and freemen. Tell me whether you
assent to my words?
Cle. On first hearing, what you say appears to be the truth; but to be
hasty in coming to a conclusion about such important matters would be
very childish and simple.
Ath. Suppose, Cleinias and Megillus, that we consider the virtue which
follows next of those which we intended to discuss (for after courage
comes temperance), what institutions shall we find relating to
temperance, either in Crete or Lacedaemon, which, like your military
institutions, differ from those of any ordinary state.
Meg. That is not an easy question to answer; still I should say that the
common meals and gymnastic exercises have been excellently devised for
the promotion both of temperance and courage.
Ath. There seems to be a difficulty, Stranger, with regard to states, in
making words and facts coincide so that there can be no dispute about
them. As in the human body, the regimen which does good in one way does
harm in another; and we can hardly say that any one course of treatment
is adapted to a particular constitution.
Now the gymnasia and common meals do a great deal of good, and yet they
are a source of evil in civil troubles; as is shown in the case of the
Milesian, and Boeotian, and Thurian youth, among whom these institutions
seem always to have had a tendency to degrade the ancient and natural
custom of love below the level, not only of man, but of the beasts. The
charge may be fairly brought against your cities above all others, and
is true also of most other states which especially cultivate gymnastics.
Whether such matters are to be regarded jestingly or seriously, I think
that the pleasure is to be deemed natural which arises out of the
intercourse between men and women; but that the intercourse of men with
men, or of women with women, is contrary to nature, and that the bold
attempt was originally due to unbridled lust. The Cretans are always
accused of having invented the story of Ganymede and Zeus because they
wanted to justify themselves in the enjoyment of unnatural pleasures by
the practice of the god whom they believe to have been their lawgiver.
Leaving the story, we may observe that any speculation about laws turns
almost entirely on pleasure and pain, both in states and in individuals:
these are two fountains which nature lets flow, and he who draws from
them where and when, and as much as he ought, is happy; and this holds
of men and animals — of individuals as well as states; and he who
indulges in them ignorantly and at the wrong time, is the reverse of
happy.
Meg. I admit, Stranger, that your words are well spoken, and I hardly
know what to say in answer to you; but still I think that the Spartan
lawgiver was quite right in forbidding pleasure. Of the Cretan laws, I
shall leave the defence to my Cnosian friend. But the laws of Sparta, in
as far as they relate to pleasure, appear to me to be the best in the
world; for that which leads mankind in general into the wildest pleasure
and licence, and every other folly, the law has clean driven out; and
neither in the country nor in towns which are under the control of
Sparta, will you find revelries and the many incitements of every kind
of pleasure which accompany them; and any one who meets a drunken and
disorderly person, will immediately have him most severely punished, and
will not let him off on any pretence, not even at the time of a
Dionysiac festival; although I have remarked that this may happen at
your performances “on the cart,” as they are called; and among our
Tarentine colonists I have seen the whole city drunk at a Dionysiac
festival; but nothing of the sort happens among us.
Ath. O Lacedaemonian Stranger, these festivities are praiseworthy where
there is a spirit of endurance, but are very senseless when they are
under no regulations. In order to retaliate, an Athenian has only to
point out the licence which exists among your women. To all such
accusations, whether they are brought against the Tarentines, or us, or
you, there is one answer which exonerates the practice in question from
impropriety. When a stranger expresses wonder at the singularity of what
he sees, any inhabitant will naturally answer him: Wonder not, O
stranger; this is our custom, and you may very likely have some other
custom about the same things. Now we are speaking, my friends, not about
men in general, but about the merits and defects of the lawgivers
themselves. Let us then discourse a little more at length about
intoxication, which is a very important subject, and will seriously task
the discrimination of the legislator.
I am not speaking of drinking, or not drinking, wine at all, but of
intoxication. Are we to follow the custom of the Scythians, and
Persians, and Carthaginians, and Celts, and Iberians, and Thracians, who
are all warlike nations, or that of your countrymen, for they, as you
say, altogether abstain? But the Scythians and Thracians, both men and
women, drink unmixed wine, which they pour on their garments, and this
they think a happy and glorious institution. The Persians, again, are
much given to other practices of luxury which you reject, but they have
more moderation in them than the Thracians and Scythians.
Meg. O best of men, we have only to take arms into our hands, and we
send all these nations flying before us.
Ath. Nay, my good friend, do not say that; there have been, as there
always will be, flights and pursuits of which no account can be given,
and therefore we cannot say that victory or defeat in battle affords
more than a doubtful proof of the goodness or badness of institutions.
For when the greater states conquer and enslave the lesser, as the
Syracusans have done the Locrians, who appear to be the best-governed
people in their part of the world, or as the Athenians have done the
Ceans (and there are ten thousand other instances of the same sort of
thing), all this is not to the point; let us endeavour rather to form a
conclusion about each institution in itself and say nothing, at present,
of victories and defeats. Let us only say that such and such a custom is
honourable, and another not. And first permit me to tell you how good
and bad are to be estimated in reference to these very matters.
Meg. How do you mean?
Ath. All those who are ready at a moment’s notice to praise or censure
any practice which is matter of discussion, seem to me to proceed in a
wrong way. Let me give you an illustration of what I mean: You may
suppose a person to be praising wheat as a good kind of food, whereupon
another person instantly blames wheat, without ever enquiring into its
effect or use, or in what way, or to whom, or with what, or in what
state and how, wheat is to be given. And that is just what we are doing
in this discussion. At the very mention of the word intoxication, one
side is ready with their praises and the other with their censures;
which is absurd. For either side adduce their witnesses and approvers,
and some of us think that we speak with authority because we have many
witnesses; and others because they see those who abstain conquering in
battle, and this again is disputed by us. Now I cannot say that I shall
be satisfied, if we go on discussing each of the remaining laws in the
same way. And about this very point of intoxication I should like to
speak in another way, which I hold to be the right one; for if number is
to be the criterion, are there not myriads upon myriads of nations ready
to dispute the point with you, who are only two cities?
Meg. I shall gladly welcome any method of enquiry which is right.
Ath. Let me put the matter thus: Suppose a person to praise the keeping
of goats, and the creatures themselves as capital things to have, and
then some one who had seen goats feeding without a goatherd in
cultivated spots, and doing mischief, were to censure a goat or any
other animal who has no keeper, or a bad keeper, would there be any
sense or justice in such censure?
Meg. Certainly not.
Ath. Does a captain require only to have nautical knowledge in order to
be a good captain, whether he is sea-sick or not? What do you say?
Meg. I say that he is not a good captain if, although he have nautical
skill, he is liable to sea-sickness.
Ath. And what would you say of the commander of an army? Will he be able
to command merely because he has military skill if he be a coward, who,
when danger comes, is sick and drunk with fear?
Meg. Impossible.
Ath. And what if besides being a coward he has no skill?
Meg. He is a miserable fellow, not fit to be a commander of men, but
only of old women.
Ath. And what would you say of some one who blames or praises any sort
of meeting which is intended by nature to have a ruler, and is well
enough when under his presidency? The critic, however, has never seen
the society meeting together at an orderly feast under the control of a
president, but always without a ruler or with a bad one: when observers
of this class praise or blame such meetings, are we to suppose that what
they say is of any value?
Meg. Certainly not, if they have never seen or been present at such a
meeting when rightly ordered.
Ath. Reflect; may not banqueters and banquets be said to constitute a
kind of meeting?
Meg. Of course.
Ath. And did any one ever see this sort of convivial meeting rightly
ordered? Of course you two will answer that you have never seen them at
all, because they are not customary or lawful in your country; but I
have come across many of them in many different places, and moreover I
have made enquiries about them wherever I went, as I may say, and never
did I see or hear of anything of the kind which was carried on
altogether rightly; in some few particulars they might be right, but in
general they were utterly wrong.
Cle. What do you mean, Stranger, by this remark? Explain; For we, as you
say, from our inexperience in such matters, might very likely not know,
even if they came in our way, what was right or wrong in such societies.
Ath. Likely enough; then let me try to be your instructor: You would
acknowledge, would you not, that in all gatherings of man, kind, of
whatever sort, there ought to be a leader?
Cle. Certainly I should.
Ath. And we were saying just now, that when men are at war the leader
ought to be a brave man?
Cle. We were.
Ath. The brave man is less likely than the coward to be disturbed by
fears?
Cle. That again is true.
Ath. And if there were a possibility of having a general of an army who
was absolutely fearless and imperturbable, should we not by all means
appoint him?
Cle. Assuredly.
Ath. Now, however, we are speaking not of a general who is to command an
army, when foe meets foe in time of war, but of one who is to regulate
meetings of another sort, when friend meets friend in time of peace.
Cle. True.
Ath. And that sort of meeting, if attended with drunkenness, is apt to
be unquiet.
Cle. Certainly; the reverse of quiet.
Ath. In the first place, then, the revellers as well as the soldiers
will require a ruler?
Cle. To be sure; no men more so.
Ath. And we ought, if possible, to provide them with a quiet ruler?
Cle. Of course.
Ath. And he should be a man who understands society; for his duty is to
preserve the friendly feelings which exist among the company at the
time, and to increase them for the future by his use of the occasion.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Must we not appoint a sober man and a wise to be our master of the
revels? For if the ruler of drinkers be himself young and drunken, and
not over-wise, only by some special good fortune will he be saved from
doing some great evil.
Cle. It will be by a singular good fortune that he is saved.
Ath. Now suppose such associations to be framed in the best way possible
in states, and that some one blames the very fact of their existence —
he may very likely be right. But if he blames a practice which he only
sees very much mismanaged, he shows in the first place that he is not
aware of the mismanagement, and also not aware that everything done in
this way will turn out to be wrong, because done without the
superintendence of a sober ruler. Do you not see that a drunken pilot or
a drunken ruler of any sort will ruin ship, chariot, army — anything, in
short, of which he has the direction?
Cle. The last remark is very true, Stranger; and I see quite clearly the
advantage of an army having a good leader — he will give victory in war
to his followers, which is a very great advantage; and so of other
things. But I do not see any similar advantage which either individuals
or states gain from the good management of a feast; and I want you to
tell me what great good will be effected, supposing that this drinking
ordinance is duly established.
Ath. If you mean to ask what great good accrues to the state from the
right training of a single youth, or of a single chorus — when the
question is put in that form, we cannot deny that the good is not very
great in any particular instance. But if you ask what is the good of
education in general, the answer is easy — that education makes good
men, and that good men act nobly, and conquer their enemies in battle,
because they are good. Education certainly gives victory, although
victory sometimes produces forgetfulness of education; for many have
grown insolent from victory in war, and this insolence has engendered in
them innumerable evils; and many a victory has been and will be suicidal
to the victors; but education is never suicidal.
Cle. You seem to imply, my friend, that convivial meetings, when rightly
ordered, are an important element of education.
Ath. Certainly I do.
Cle. And can you show that what you have been saying is true?
Ath. To be absolutely sure of the truth of matters concerning which
there are many opinions, is an attribute of the Gods not given to man,
Stranger; but I shall be very happy to tell you what I think, especially
as we are now proposing to enter on a discussion concerning laws and
constitutions.
Cle. Your opinion, Stranger, about the questions which are now being
raised, is precisely what we want to hear.
Ath. Very good; I will try to find a way of explaining my meaning, and
you shall try to have the gift of understanding me. But first let me
make an apology. The Athenian citizen is reputed among all the Hellenes
to be a great talker, whereas Sparta is renowned for brevity, and the
Cretans have more wit than words. Now I am afraid of appearing to elicit
a very long discourse out of very small materials. For drinking indeed
may appear to be a slight matter, and yet is one which cannot be rightly
ordered according to nature, without correct principles of music; these
are necessary to any clear or satisfactory treatment of the subject, and
music again runs up into education generally, and there is much to be
said about all this.
What would you say then to leaving these matters for the present, and
passing on to some other question of law?
Meg. O Athenian Stranger, let me tell you what perhaps you do not know,
that our family is the proxenus of your state. I imagine that from their
earliest youth all boys, when they are told that they are the proxeni of
a particular state, feel kindly towards their second and this has
certainly been my own feeling. I can well remember from the days of my
boyhood, how, when any Lacedaemonians praised or blamed the Athenians,
they used to say to me — “See, Megillus, how ill or how well,” as the
case might be, “has your state treated us”; and having always had to
fight your battles against detractors when I heard you assailed, I
became warmly attached to you. And I always like to hear the Athenian
tongue spoken; the common saying is quite true, that a good Athenian is
more than ordinarily good, for he is the only man who is freely and
genuinely good by the divine inspiration of his own nature, and is not
manufactured. Therefore be assured that I shall like to hear you say
whatever you have to say.
Cle. Yes, Stranger; and when you have heard me speak, say boldly what is
in your thoughts. Let me remind you of a tie which unites you to Crete.
You must have heard here the story of the prophet Epimenides, who was of
my family, and came to Athens ten years before the Persian war, in
accordance with the response of the Oracle, and offered certain
sacrifices which the God commanded.
The Athenians were at that time in dread of the Persian invasion; and he
said that for ten years they would not come, and that when they came,
they would go away again without accomplishing any of their objects, and
would suffer more evil than they inflicted. At that time my forefathers
formed ties of hospitality with you; thus ancient is the friendship
which I and my parents have had for you.
Ath. You seem to be quite ready to listen; and I am also ready to
perform as much as I can of an almost impossible task, which I will
nevertheless attempt. At the outset of the discussion, let me define the
nature and power of education; for this is the way by which our argument
must travel onwards to the God Dionysus.
Cle. Let us proceed, if you please.
Ath. Well, then, if I tell you what are my notions of education, will
you consider whether they satisfy you?
Cle. Let us hear.
Ath. According to my view, any one who would be good at anything must
practise that thing from his youth upwards, both in sport and earnest,
in its several branches: for example, he who is to be a good builder,
should play at building children’s houses; he who is to be a good
husbandman, at tilling the ground; and those who have the care of their
education should provide them when young with mimic tools. They should
learn beforehand the knowledge which they will afterwards require for
their art. For example, the future carpenter should learn to measure or
apply the line in play; and the future warrior should learn riding, or
some other exercise, for amusement, and the teacher should endeavour to
direct the children’s inclinations and pleasures, by the help of
amusements, to their final aim in life. The most important part of
education is right training in the nursery. The soul of the child in his
play should be guided to the love of that sort of excellence in which
when he grows up to manhood he will have to be perfected. Do you agree
with me thus far?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then let us not leave the meaning of education ambiguous or
illdefined. At present, when we speak in terms of praise or blame about
the bringing-up of each person, we call one man educated and another
uneducated, although the uneducated man may be sometimes very well
educated for the calling of a retail trader, or of a captain of a ship,
and the like. For we are not speaking of education in this narrower
sense, but of that other education in virtue from youth upwards, which
makes a man eagerly pursue the ideal perfection of citizenship, and
teaches him how rightly to rule and how to obey. This is the only
education which, upon our view, deserves the name; that other sort of
training, which aims at the acquisition of wealth or bodily strength, or
mere cleverness apart from intelligence and justice, is mean and
illiberal, and is not worthy to be called education at all. But let us
not quarrel with one another about a word, provided that the proposition
which has just been granted hold good: to wit, that those who are
rightly educated generally become good men. Neither must we cast a
slight upon education, which is the first and fairest thing that the
best of men can ever have, and which, though liable to take a wrong
direction, is capable of reformation. And this work of reformation is
the great business of every man while he lives.
Cle. Very true; and we entirely agree with you.
Ath. And we agreed before that they are good men who are able to rule
themselves, and bad men who are not.
Cle. You are quite right.
Ath. Let me now proceed, if I can, to clear up the subject a little
further by an illustration which I will offer you.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. Do we not consider each of ourselves to be one?
Cle. We do.
Ath. And each one of us has in his bosom two counsellors, both foolish
and also antagonistic; of which we call the one pleasure, and the other
pain.
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. Also there are opinions about the future, which have the general
name of expectations; and the specific name of fear, when the
expectation is of pain; and of hope, when of pleasure; and further,
there is reflection about the good or evil of them, and this, when
embodied in a decree by the State, is called Law.
Cle. I am hardly able to follow you; proceed, however, as if I were.
Meg. I am in the like case.
Ath. Let us look at the matter thus: May we not conceive each of us
living beings to be a puppet of the Gods, either their plaything only,
or created with a purpose — which of the two we cannot certainly know?
But we do know, that these affections in us are like cords and strings,
which pull us different and opposite ways, and to opposite actions; and
herein lies the difference between virtue and vice. According to the
argument there is one among these cords which every man ought to grasp
and never let go, but to pull with it against all the rest; and this is
the sacred and golden cord of reason, called by us the common law of the
State; there are others which are hard and of iron, but this one is soft
because golden; and there are several other kinds. Now we ought always
to cooperate with the lead of the best, which is law. For inasmuch as
reason is beautiful and gentle, and not violent, her rule must needs
have ministers in order to help the golden principle in vanquishing the
other principles. And thus the moral of the tale about our being puppets
will not have been lost, and the meaning of the expression “superior or
inferior to a man’s self” will become clearer; and the individual,
attaining to right reason in this matter of pulling the strings of the
puppet, should live according to its rule; while the city, receiving the
same from some god or from one who has knowledge of these things, should
embody it in a law, to be her guide in her dealings with herself and
with other states. In this way virtue and vice will be more clearly
distinguished by us. And when they have become clearer, education and
other institutions will in like manner become clearer; and in particular
that question of convivial entertainment, which may seem, perhaps, to
have been a very trifling matter, and to have taken a great many more
words than were necessary.
Cle. Perhaps, however, the theme may turn out not to be unworthy of the
length of discourse.
Ath. Very good; let us proceed with any enquiry which really bears on
our present object.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. Suppose that we give this puppet of ours drink — what will be the
effect on him?
Cle. Having what in view do you ask that question?
Ath. Nothing as yet; but I ask generally, when the puppet is brought to
the drink, what sort of result is likely to follow. I will endeavour to
explain my meaning more clearly: what I am now asking is thisDoes the
drinking of wine heighten and increase pleasures and pains, and passions
and loves?
Cle. Very greatly.
Ath. And are perception and memory, and opinion and prudence, heightened
and increased? Do not these qualities entirely desert a man if he
becomes saturated with drink?
Cle. Yes, they entirely desert him.
Ath. Does he not return to the state of soul in which he was when a
young child?
Cle. He does.
Ath. Then at that time he will have the least control over himself?
Cle. The least.
Ath. And will he not be in a most wretched plight?
Cle. Most wretched.
Ath. Then not only an old man but also a drunkard becomes a second time
a child?
Cle. Well said, Stranger.
Ath. Is there any argument which will prove to us that we ought to
encourage the taste for drinking instead of doing all we can to avoid
it?
Cle. I suppose that there is; you at any rate, were just now saying that
you were ready to maintain such a doctrine.
Ath. True, I was; and I am ready still, seeing that you have both
declared that you are anxious to hear me.
Cle. To sure we are, if only for the strangeness of the paradox, which
asserts that a man ought of his own accord to plunge into utter
degradation.
Ath. Are you speaking of the soul?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And what would you say about the body, my friend? Are you not
surprised at any one of his own accord bringing upon himself deformity,
leanness, ugliness, decrepitude?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Yet when a man goes of his own accord to a doctor’s shop, and takes
medicine, is he not aware that soon, and for many days afterwards, he
will be in a state of body which he would die rather than accept as the
permanent condition of his life? Are not those who train in gymnasia, at
first beginning reduced to a state of weakness?
Cle. Yes, all that is well known.
Ath. Also that they go of their own accord for the sake of the
subsequent benefit?
Cle. Very good.
Ath. And we may conceive this to be true in the same way of other
practices?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And the same view may be taken of the pastime of drinking wine, if
we are right in supposing that the same good effect follows?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. If such convivialities should turn out to have any advantage equal
in importance to that of gymnastic, they are in their very nature to be
preferred to mere bodily exercise, inasmuch as they have no
accompaniment of pain.
Cle. True; but I hardly think that we shall be able to discover any such
benefits to be derived from them.
Ath. That is just what we must endeavour to show. And let me ask you a
question: Do we not distinguish two kinds of fear, which are very
different?
Cle. What are they?
Ath. There is the fear of expected evil.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And there is the fear of an evil reputation; we are afraid of being
thought evil, because we do or say some dishonourable thing, which fear
we and all men term shame.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. These are the two fears, as I called them; one of which is the
opposite of pain and other fears, and the opposite also of the greatest
and most numerous sort of pleasures.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And does not the legislator and every one who is good for anything,
hold this fear in the greatest honour? This is what he terms reverence,
and the confidence which is the reverse of this he terms insolence; and
the latter he always deems to be a very great evil both to individuals
and to states.
Cle. True.
Ath. Does not this kind of fear preserve us in many important ways? What
is there which so surely gives victory and safety in war? For there are
two things which give victory — confidence before enemies, and fear of
disgrace before friends.
Cle. There are.
Ath. Then each of us should be fearless and also fearful; and why we
should be either has now been determined.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And when we want to make any one fearless, we and the law bring him
face to face with many fears.
Cle. Clearly.
Ath. And when we want to make him rightly fearful, must we not introduce
him to shameless pleasures, and train him to take up arms against them,
and to overcome them? Or does this principle apply to courage only, and
must he who would be perfect in valour fight against and overcome his
own natural character — since if he be unpractised and inexperienced in
such conflicts, he will not be half the man which he might have been —
and are we to suppose, that with temperance it is otherwise, and that he
who has never fought with the shameless and unrighteous temptations of
his pleasures and lusts, and conquered them, in earnest and in play, by
word, deed, and act, will still be perfectly temperate?
Cle. A most unlikely supposition.
Ath. Suppose that some God had given a fear-potion to men, and that the
more a man drank of this the more he regarded himself at every draught
as a child of misfortune, and that he feared everything happening or
about to happen to him; and that at last the most courageous of men
utterly lost his presence of mind for a time, and only came to himself
again when he had slept off the influence of the draught.
Cle. But has such a draught, Stranger, ever really been known among men?
Ath. No; but, if there had been, might not such a draught have been of
use to the legislator as a test of courage? Might we not go and say to
him, “O legislator, whether you are legislating for the Cretan, or for
any other state, would you not like to have a touchstone of the courage
and cowardice of your citizens?”
Cle. “I should,” will be the answer of every one.
Ath. “And you would rather have a touchstone in which there is no risk
and no great danger than the reverse?”
Cle. In that proposition every one may safely agree.
Ath. “And in order to make use of the draught, you would lead them amid
these imaginary terrors, and prove them, when the affection of fear was
working upon them, and compel them to be fearless, exhorting and
admonishing them; and also honouring them, but dishonouring any one who
will not be persuaded by you to be in all respects such as you command
him; and if he underwent the trial well and manfully, you would let him
go unscathed; but if ill, you would inflict a punishment upon him? Or
would you abstain from using the potion altogether, although you have no
reason for abstaining?”
Cle. He would be certain, Stranger, to use the potion.
Ath. This would be a mode of testing and training which would be
wonderfully easy in comparison with those now in use, and might be
applied to a single person, or to a few, or indeed to any number; and he
would do well who provided himself with the potion only, rather than
with any number of other things, whether he preferred to be by himself
in solitude, and there contend with his fears, because he was ashamed to
be seen by the eye of man until he was perfect; or trusting to the force
of his own nature and habits, and believing that he had been already
disciplined sufficiently, he did not hesitate to train himself in
company with any number of others, and display his power in conquering
the irresistible change effected by the draught — his virtue being such,
that he never in any instance fell into any great unseemliness, but was
always himself, and left off before he arrived at the last cup, fearing
that he, like all other men, might be overcome by the potion.
Cle. Yes, Stranger, in that last case, too, he might equally show his
selfcontrol.
Ath. Let us return to the lawgiver, and say to him:
“Well, lawgiver, there is certainly no such fear-potion which man has
either received from the Gods or himself discovered; for witchcraft has
no place at our board. But is there any potion which might serve as a
test of overboldness and excessive and indiscreet boasting?"
Cle. I suppose that he will say, Yes — meaning that wine is such a
potion.
Ath. Is not the effect of this quite the opposite of the effect of the
other? When a man drinks wine he begins to be better pleased with
himself, and the more he drinks the more he is filled full of brave
hopes, and conceit of his power, and at last the string of his tongue is
loosened, and fancying himself wise, he is brimming over with
lawlessness, and has no more fear or respect, and is ready to do or say
anything.
Cle. I think that every one will admit the truth of your description.
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. Now, let us remember, as we were saying, that there are two things
which should be cultivated in the soul: first, the greatest courage;
secondly, the greatest fear.
Cle. Which you said to be characteristic of reverence, if I am not
mistaken.
Ath. Thank you for reminding me. But now, as the habit of courage and
fearlessness is to be trained amid fears, let us consider whether the
opposite quality is not also to be trained among opposites.
Cle. That is probably the case.
Ath. There are times and seasons at which we are by nature more than
commonly valiant and bold; now we ought to train ourselves on these
occasions to be as free from impudence and shamelessness as possible,
and to be afraid to say or suffer or do anything that is base.
Cle. True.
Ath. Are not the moments in which we are apt to be bold and shameless
such as these? — when we are under the influence of anger, love, pride,
ignorance, avarice, cowardice? or when wealth, beauty, strength, and all
the intoxicating workings of pleasure madden us? What is better adapted
than the festive use of wine, in the first place to test, and in the
second place to train the character of a man, if care be taken in the
use of it? What is there cheaper, or more innocent? For do but consider
which is the greater risk: Would you rather test a man of a morose and
savage nature, which is the source of ten thousand acts of injustice, by
making bargains with him at a risk to yourself, or by having him as a
companion at the festival of Dionysus? Or would you, if you wanted to
apply a touchstone to a man who is prone to love, entrust your wife, or
your sons, or daughters to him, perilling your dearest interests in
order to have a view of the condition of his soul? I might mention
numberless cases, in which the advantage would be manifest of getting to
know a character in sport, and without paying dearly for experience. And
I do not believe that either a Cretan, or any other man, will doubt that
such a test is a fair test, and safer, cheaper, and speedier than any
other.
Cle. That is certainly true.
Ath. And this knowledge of the natures and habits of men’s souls will be
of the greatest use in that art which has the management of them; and
that art, if I am not mistaken, is politics.
Cle. Exactly so.
BOOK II
Athenian Stranger. And now we have to consider whether the insight into
human nature is the only benefit derived from well ordered potations, or
whether there are not other advantages great and much to be desired. The
argument seems to imply that there are. But how and in what way these
are to be attained, will have to be considered attentively, or we may be
entangled in error.
Cleinias. Proceed.
Ath. Let me once more recall our doctrine of right education; which, if
I am not mistaken, depends on the due regulation of convivial
intercourse.
Cle. You talk rather grandly.
Ath. Pleasure and pain I maintain to be the first perceptions of
children, and I say that they are the forms under which virtue and vice
are originally present to them. As to wisdom and true and fixed
opinions, happy is the man who acquires them, even when declining in
years; and we may say that he who possesses them, and the blessings
which are contained in them, is a perfect man. Now I mean by education
that training which is given by suitable habits to the first instincts
of virtue in children; — when pleasure, and friendship, and pain, and
hatred, are rightly implanted in souls not yet capable of understanding
the nature of them, and who find them, after they have attained reason,
to be in harmony with her. This harmony of the soul, taken as a whole,
is virtue; but the particular training in respect of pleasure and pain,
which leads you always to hate what you ought to hate, and love what you
ought to love from the beginning of life to the end, may be separated
off; and, in my view, will be rightly called education.
Cle. I think, Stranger, that you are quite right in all that you have
said and are saying about education.
Ath. I am glad to hear that you agree with me; for, indeed, the
discipline of pleasure and pain which, when rightly ordered, is a
principle of education, has been often relaxed and corrupted in human
life. And the Gods, pitying the toils which our race is born to undergo,
have appointed holy festivals, wherein men alternate rest with labour;
and have given them the Muses and Apollo, the leader of the Muses, and
Dionysus, to be companions in their revels, that they may improve their
education by taking part in the festivals of the Gods, and with their
help. I should like to know whether a common saying is in our opinion
true to nature or not.
For men say that the young of all creatures cannot be quiet in their
bodies or in their voices; they are always wanting to move and cry out;
some leaping and skipping, and overflowing with sportiveness and delight
at something, others uttering all sorts of cries. But, whereas the
animals have no perception of order or disorder in their movements, that
is, of rhythm or harmony, as they are called, to us, the Gods, who, as
we say, have been appointed to be our companions in the dance, have
given the pleasurable sense of harmony and rhythm; and so they stir us
into life, and we follow them, joining hands together in dances and
songs; and these they call choruses, which is a term naturally
expressive of cheerfulness.
Shall we begin, then, with the acknowledgment that education is first
given through Apollo and the Muses? What do you say?
Cle. I assent.
Ath. And the uneducated is he who has not been trained in the chorus,
and the educated is he who has been well trained?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And the chorus is made up of two parts, dance and song?
Cle. True.
Ath. Then he who is well educated will be able to sing and dance well?
Cle. I suppose that he will.
Ath. Let us see; what are we saying?
Cle. What?
Ath. He sings well and dances well; now must we add that he sings what
is good and dances what is good?
Cle. Let us make the addition.
Ath. We will suppose that he knows the good to be good, and the bad to
be bad, and makes use of them accordingly: which now is the better
trained in dancing and music — he who is able to move his body and to
use his voice in what is understood to be the right manner, but has no
delight in good or hatred of evil; or he who is incorrect in gesture and
voice, but is right in his sense of pleasure and pain, and welcomes what
is good, and is offended at what is evil?
Cle. There is a great difference, Stranger, in the two kinds of
education.
Ath. If we three know what is good in song and dance, then we truly know
also who is educated and who is uneducated; but if not, then we
certainly shall not know wherein lies the safeguard of education, and
whether there is any or not.
Cle. True.
Ath. Let us follow the scent like hounds, and go in pursuit of beauty of
figure, and melody, and song, and dance; if these escape us, there will
be no use in talking about true education, whether Hellenic or
barbarian.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And what is beauty of figure, or beautiful melody? When a manly
soul is in trouble, and when a cowardly soul is in similar case, are
they likely to use the same figures and gestures, or to give utterance
to the same sounds?
Cle. How can they, when the very colours of their faces differ?
Ath. Good, my friend; I may observe, however, in passing, that in music
there certainly are figures and there are melodies: and music is
concerned with harmony and rhythm, so that you may speak of a melody or
figure having good rhythm or good harmony — the term is correct enough;
but to speak metaphorically of a melody or figure having a “good
colour,” as the masters of choruses do, is not allowable, although you
can speak of the melodies or figures of the brave and the coward,
praising the one and censuring the other. And not to be tedious, let us
say that the figures and melodies which are expressive of virtue of soul
or body, or of images of virtue, are without exception good, and those
which are expressive of vice are the reverse of good.
Cle. Your suggestion is excellent; and let us answer that these things
are so.
Ath. Once more, are all of us equally delighted with every sort of
dance?
Cle. Far otherwise.
Ath. What, then, leads us astray? Are beautiful things not the same to
us all, or are they the same in themselves, but not in our opinion of
them? For no one will admit that forms of vice in the dance are more
beautiful than forms of virtue, or that he himself delights in the forms
of vice, and others in a muse of another character. And yet most persons
say, that the excellence of music is to give pleasure to our souls. But
this is intolerable and blasphemous; there is, however, a much more
plausible account of the delusion.
Cle. What?
Ath. The adaptation of art to the characters of men. Choric movements
are imitations of manners occurring in various actions, fortunes,
dispositions — each particular is imitated, and those to whom the words,
or songs, or dances are suited, either by nature or habit or both,
cannot help feeling pleasure in them and applauding them, and calling
them beautiful. But those whose natures, or ways, or habits are unsuited
to them, cannot delight in them or applaud them, and they call them
base. There are others, again, whose natures are right and their habits
wrong, or whose habits are right and their natures wrong, and they
praise one thing, but are pleased at another. For they say that all
these imitations are pleasant, but not good. And in the presence of
those whom they think wise, they are ashamed of dancing and singing in
the baser manner, or of deliberately lending any countenance to such
proceedings; and yet, they have a secret pleasure in them.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And is any harm done to the lover of vicious dances or songs, or
any good done to the approver of the opposite sort of pleasure?
Cle. I think that there is.
Ath. “I think” is not the word, but I would say, rather, “I am certain.”
For must they not have the same effect as when a man associates with bad
characters, whom he likes and approves rather than dislikes, and only
censures playfully because he has a suspicion of his own badness? In
that case, he who takes pleasure in them will surely become like those
in whom he takes pleasure, even though he be ashamed to praise them. And
what greater good or evil can any destiny ever make us undergo?
Cle. I know of none.
Ath. Then in a city which has good laws, or in future ages is to have
them, bearing in mind the instruction and amusement which are given by
music, can we suppose that the poets are to be allowed to teach in the
dance anything which they themselves like, in the way of rhythm, or
melody, or words, to the young children of any wellconditioned parents?
Is the poet to train his choruses as he pleases, without reference to
virtue or vice?
Cle. That is surely quite unreasonable, and is not to be thought of.
Ath. And yet he may do this in almost any state with the exception of
Egypt.
Cle. And what are the laws about music and dancing in Egypt?
Ath. You will wonder when I tell you: Long ago they appear to have
recognized the very principle of which we are now speaking — that their
young citizens must be habituated to forms and strains of virtue. These
they fixed, and exhibited the patterns of them in their temples; and no
painter or artist is allowed to innovate upon them, or to leave the
traditional forms and invent new ones. To this day, no alteration is
allowed either in these arts, or in music at all. And you will find that
their works of art are painted or moulded in the same forms which they
had ten thousand years ago; — this is literally true and no exaggeration
— their ancient paintings and sculptures are not a whit better or worse
than the work of to-day, but are made with just the same skill.
Cle. How extraordinary!
Ath. I should rather say, How statesmanlike, how worthy of a legislator!
I know that other things in Egypt are nat so well. But what I am telling
you about music is true and deserving of consideration, because showing
that a lawgiver may institute melodies which have a natural truth and
correctness without any fear of failure. To do this, however, must be
the work of God, or of a divine person; in Egypt they have a tradition
that their ancient chants which have been preserved for so many ages are
the composition of the Goddess Isis. And therefore, as I was saying, if
a person can only find in any way the natural melodies, he may
confidently embody them in a fixed and legal form. For the love of
novelty which arises out of pleasure in the new and weariness of the
old, has not strength enough to corrupt the consecrated song and dance,
under the plea that they have become antiquated. At any rate, they are
far from being corrupted in Egypt.
Cle. Your arguments seem to prove your point.
Ath. May we not confidently say that the true use of music and of choral
festivities is as follows: We rejoice when we think that we prosper, and
again we think that we prosper when we rejoice?
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. And when rejoicing in our good fortune, we are unable to be still?
Cle. True.
Ath. Our young men break forth into dancing and singing, and we who are
their elders deem that we are fulfilling our part in life when we look
on at them. Having lost our agility, we delight in their sports and
merry-making, because we love to think of our former selves; and gladly
institute contests for those who are able to awaken in us the memory of
our youth.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Is it altogether unmeaning to say, as the common people do about
festivals, that he should be adjudged the wisest of men, and the winner
of the palm, who gives us the greatest amount of pleasure and mirth? For
on such occasions, and when mirth is the order of the day, ought not he
to be honoured most, and, as I was saying, bear the palm, who gives most
mirth to the greatest number? Now is this a true way of speaking or of
acting?
Cle. Possibly.
Ath. But, my dear friend, let us distinguish between different cases,
and not be hasty in forming a judgment: One way of considering the
question will be to imagine a festival at which there are entertainments
of all sorts, including gymnastic, musical, and equestrian contests: the
citizens are assembled; prizes are offered, and proclamation is made
that any one who likes may enter the lists, and that he is to bear the
palm who gives the most pleasure to the spectators — there is to be no
regulation about the manner how; but he who is most successful in giving
pleasure is to be crowned victor, and deemed to be the pleasantest of
the candidates: What is likely to be the result of such a proclamation?
Cle. In what respect?
Ath. There would be various exhibitions: one man, like Homer, will
exhibit a rhapsody, another a performance on the lute; one will have a
tragedy, and another a comedy. Nor would there be anything astonishing
in some one imagining that he could gain the prize by exhibiting a
puppet-show. Suppose these competitors to meet, and not these only, but
innumerable others as well can you tell me who ought to be the victor?
Cle. I do not see how any one can answer you, or pretend to know, unless
he has heard with his own ears the several competitors; the question is
absurd.
Ath. Well, then, if neither of you can answer, shall I answer this
question which you deem so absurd?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. If very small children are to determine the question, they will
decide for the puppet show.
Cle. Of course.
Ath. The older children will be advocates of comedy; educated women, and
young men, and people in general, will favour tragedy.
Cle. Very likely.
Ath. And I believe that we old men would have the greatest pleasure in
hearing a rhapsodist recite well the Iliad and Odyssey, or one of the
Hesiodic poems, and would award the victory to him. But, who would
really be the victor? — that is the question.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. Clearly you and I will have to declare that those whom we old men
adjudge victors ought to win; for our ways are far and away better than
any which at present exist anywhere in the world.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Thus far I too should agree with the many, that the excellence of
music is to be measured by pleasure. But the pleasure must not be that
of chance persons; the fairest music is that which delights the best and
best educated, and especially that which delights the one man who is
pre-eminent in virtue and education. And therefore the judges must be
men of character, for they will require both wisdom and courage; the
true judge must not draw his inspiration from the theatre, nor ought he
to be unnerved by the clamour of the many and his own incapacity; nor
again, knowing the truth, ought he through cowardice and unmanliness
carelessly to deliver a lying judgment, with the very same lips which
have just appealed to the Gods before he judged. He is sitting not as
the disciple of the theatre, but, in his proper place, as their
instructor, and he ought to be the enemy of all pandering to the
pleasure of the spectators. The ancient and common custom of Hellas,
which still prevails in Italy and Sicily, did certainly leave the
judgment to the body of spectators, who determined the victor by show of
hands.
But this custom has been the destruction of the poets; for they are now
in the habit of composing with a view to please the bad taste of their
judges, and the result is that the spectators instruct themselves; — and
also it has been the ruin of the theatre; they ought to be having
characters put before them better than their own, and so receiving a
higher pleasure, but now by their own act the opposite result follows.
What inference is to be drawn from all this? Shall I tell you?
Cle. What?
Ath. The inference at which we arrive for the third or fourth time is,
that education is the constraining and directing of youth towards that
right reason, which the law affirms, and which the experience of the
eldest and best has agreed to be truly right. In order, then, that the
soul of the child may not be habituated to feel joy and sorrow in a
manner at variance with the law, and those who obey the law, but may
rather follow the law and rejoice and sorrow at the same things as the
aged — in order, I say, to produce this effect, chants appear to have
been invented, which really enchant, and are designed to implant that
harmony of which we speak. And, because the mind of the child is
incapable of enduring serious training, they are called plays and songs,
and are performed in play; just as when men are sick and ailing in their
bodies, their attendants give them wholesome diet in pleasant meats and
drinks, but unwholesome diet in disagreeable things, in order that they
may learn, as they ought, to like the one, and to dislike the other. And
similarly the true legislator will persuade, and, if he cannot persuade,
will compel the poet to express, as he ought, by fair and noble words,
in his rhythms, the figures, and in his melodies, the music of temperate
and brave and in every way good men.
Cle. But do you really imagine, Stranger, that this is the way in which
poets generally compose in States at the present day? As far as I can
observe, except among us and among the Lacedaemonians, there are no
regulations like those of which you speak; in other places novelties are
always being introduced in dancing and in music, generally not under the
authority of any law, but at the instigation of lawless pleasures; and
these pleasures are so far from being the same, as you describe the
Egyptian to be, or having the same principles, that they are never the
same.
Ath. Most true, Cleinias; and I daresay that I may have expressed myself
obscurely, and so led you to imagine that I was speaking of some really
existing state of things, whereas I was only saying what regulations I
would like to have about music; and hence there occurred a
misapprehension on your part. For when evils are far gone and
irremediable, the task of censuring them is never pleasant, although at
times necessary. But as we do not really differ, will you let me ask you
whether you consider such institutions to be more prevalent among the
Cretans and Lacedaemonians than among the other Hellenes?
Cle. Certainly they are.
Ath. And if they were extended to the other Hellenes, would it be an
improvement on the present state of things?
Cle. A very great improvement, if the customs which prevail among them
were such as prevail among us and the Lacedaemonians, and such as you
were just now saying ought to prevail.
Ath. Let us see whether we understand one another: Are not the
principles of education and music which prevail among you as follows:
you compel your poets to say that the good man, if he be temperate and
just, is fortunate and happy; and this whether he be great and strong or
small and weak, and whether he be rich or poor; and, on the other hand,
if he have a wealth passing that of Cinyras or Midas, and be unjust, he
is wretched and lives in misery? As the poet says, and with truth: I
sing not, I care not about him who accomplishes all noble things, not
having justice; let him who “draws near and stretches out his hand
against his enemies be a just man.” But if he be unjust, I would not
have him “look calmly upon bloody death,” nor “surpass in swiftness the
Thracian Boreas”; and let no other thing that is called good ever be
his. For the goods of which the many speak are not really good: first in
the catalogue is placed health, beauty next, wealth third; and then
innumerable others, as for example to have a keen eye or a quick ear,
and in general to have all the senses perfect; or, again, to be a tyrant
and do as you like; and the final consummation of happiness is to have
acquired all these things, and when you have acquired them to become at
once immortal. But you and I say, that while to the just and holy all
these things are the best of possessions, to the unjust they are all,
including even health, the greatest of evils. For in truth, to have
sight, and hearing, and the use of the senses, or to live at all without
justice and virtue, even though a man be rich in all the so-called goods
of fortune, is the greatest of evils, if life be immortal; but not so
great, if the bad man lives only a very short time. These are the truths
which, if I am not mistaken, you will persuade or compel your poets to
utter with suitable accompaniments of harmony and rhythm, and in these
they must train up your youth. Am I not right? For I plainly declare
that evils as they are termed are goods to the unjust, and only evils to
the just, and that goods are truly good to the good, but evil to the
evil.
Let me ask again, Are you and I agreed about this?
Cle. I think that we partly agree and partly do not.
Ath. When a man has health and wealth and a tyranny which lasts, and
when he is preeminent in strength and courage, and has the gift of
immortality, and none of the so-called evils which counter-balance these
goods, but only the injustice and insolence of his own natureof such an
one you are, I suspect, unwilling to believe that he is miserable rather
than happy.
Cle. That is quite true.
Ath. Once more: Suppose that he be valiant and strong, and handsome and
rich, and does throughout his whole life whatever he likes, still, if he
be unrighteous and insolent, would not both of you agree that he will of
necessity live basely? You will surely grant so much?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And an evil life too?
Cle. I am not equally disposed to grant that.
Ath. Will he not live painfully and to his own disadvantage?
Cle. How can I possibly say so?
Ath. How! Then may Heaven make us to be of one mind, for now we are of
two. To me, dear Cleinias, the truth of what I am saying is as plain as
the fact that Crete is an island. And, if I were a lawgiver, I would try
to make the poets and all the citizens speak in this strain, and I would
inflict the heaviest penalties on any one in all the land who should
dare to say that there are bad men who lead pleasant lives, or that the
profitable and gainful is one thing, and the just another; and there are
many other matters about which I should make my citizens speak in a
manner different from the Cretans and Lacedaemonians of this age, and I
may say, indeed, from the world in general. For tell me, my good
friends, by Zeus and Apollo tell me, if I were to ask these same Gods
who were your legislators — Is not the most just life also the
pleasantest? or are there two lives, one of which is the justest and the
other the pleasantest? — and they were to reply that there are two; and
thereupon I proceeded to ask, (that would be the right way of pursuing
the enquiry), Which are the happier — those who lead the justest, or
those who lead the pleasantest life? and they replied, Those who lead
the pleasantest — that would be a very strange answer, which I should
not like to put into the mouth of the Gods. The words will come with
more propriety from the lips of fathers and legislators, and therefore I
will repeat my former questions to one of them, and suppose him to say
again that he who leads the pleasantest life is the happiest. And to
that I rejoin: O my father, did you not wish me to live as happily as
possible? And yet you also never ceased telling me that I should live as
justly as possible. Now, here the giver of the rule, whether he be
legislator or father, will be in a dilemma, and will in vain endeavour
to be consistent with himself. But if he were to declare that the
justest life is also the happiest, every one hearing him would enquire,
if I am not mistaken, what is that good and noble principle in life
which the law approves, and which is superior to pleasure.
For what good can the just man have which is separated from pleasure?
Shall we say that glory and fame, coming from Gods and men, though good
and noble, are nevertheless unpleasant, and infamy pleasant? Certainly
not, sweet legislator. Or shall we say that the not-doing of wrong and
there being no wrong done is good and honourable, although there is no
pleasure in it, and that the doing wrong is pleasant, but evil and base?
Cle. Impossible.
Ath. The view which identifies the pleasant and the pleasant and the
just and the good and the noble has an excellent moral and religious
tendency. And the opposite view is most at variance with the designs of
the legislator, and is, in his opinion, infamous; for no one, if he can
help, will be persuaded to do that which gives him more pain than
pleasure. But as distant prospects are apt to make us dizzy, especially
in childhood, the legislator will try to purge away the darkness and
exhibit the truth; he will persuade the citizens, in some way or other,
by customs and praises and words, that just and unjust are shadows only,
and that injustice, which seems opposed to justice, when contemplated by
the unjust and evil man appears pleasant and the just most unpleasant;
but that from the just man’s point of view, the very opposite is the
appearance of both of them.
Cle. True.
Ath. And which may be supposed to be the truer judgment — that of the
inferior or of the better soul?
Cle. Surely, that of the better soul.
Ath. Then the unjust life must not only be more base and depraved, but
also more unpleasant than the just and holy life?
Cle. That seems to be implied in the present argument.
Ath. And even supposing this were otherwise, and not as the argument has
proven, still the lawgiver, who is worth anything, if he ever ventures
to tell a lie to the young for their good, could not invent a more
useful lie than this, or one which will have a better effect in making
them do what is right, not on compulsion but voluntarily.
Cle. Truth, Stranger, is a noble thing and a lasting, but a thing of
which men are hard to be persuaded.
Ath. And yet the story of the Sidonian Cadmus, which is so improbable,
has been readily believed, and also innumerable other tales.
Cle. What is that story?
Ath. The story of armed men springing up after the sowing of teeth,
which the legislator may take as a proof that he can persuade the minds
of the young of anything; so that he has only to reflect and find out
what belief will be of the greatest public advantage, and then use all
his efforts to make the whole community utter one and the same word in
their songs and tales and discourses all their life long. But if you do
not agree with me, there is no reason why you should not argue on the
other side.
Cle. I do not see that any argument can fairly be raised by either of us
against what you are now saying.
Ath. The next suggestion which I have to offer is, that all our three
choruses shall sing to the young and tender souls of children, reciting
in their strains all the noble thoughts of which we have already spoken,
or are about to speak; and the sum of them shall be, that the life which
is by the Gods deemed to be the happiest is also the best; — we shall
affirm this to be a most certain truth; and the minds of our young
disciples will be more likely to receive these words of ours than any
others which we might address to them.
Cle. I assent to what you say.
Ath. First will enter in their natural order the sacred choir composed
of children, which is to sing lustily the heaven-taught lay to the whole
city. Next will follow the choir of young men under the age of thirty,
who will call upon the God Paean to testify to the truth of their words,
and will pray him to be gracious to the youth and to turn their hearts.
Thirdly, the choir of elder men, who are from thirty to sixty years of
age, will also sing. There remain those who are too old to sing, and
they will tell stories, illustrating the same virtues, as with the voice
of an oracle.
Cle. Who are those who compose the third choir, Stranger? for I do not
clearly understand what you mean to say about them.
Ath. And yet almost all that I have been saying has said with a view to
them.
Cle. Will you try to be a little plainer?
Ath. I was speaking at the commencement of our discourse, as you will
remember, of the fiery nature of young creatures: I said that they were
unable to keep quiet either in limb or voice, and that they called out
and jumped about in a disorderly manner; and that no other animal
attained to any perception of order, but man only.
Now the order of motion is called rhythm, and the order of the voice, in
which high and low are duly mingled, is called harmony; and both
together are termed choric song. And I said that the Gods had pity on
us, and gave us Apollo and the Muses to be our playfellows and leaders
in the dance; and Dionysus, as I dare say that you will remember, was
the third.
Cle. I quite remember.
Ath. Thus far I have spoken of the chorus of Apollo and the Muses, and I
have still to speak of the remaining chorus, which is that of Dionysus.
Cle. How is that arranged? There is something strange, at any rate on
first hearing, in a Dionysiac chorus of old men, if you really mean that
those who are above thirty, and may be fifty, or from fifty to sixty
years of age, are to dance in his honour.
Ath. Very true; and therefore it must be shown that there is good reason
for the proposal.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Are we agreed thus far?
Cle. About what?
Ath. That every man and boy, slave and free, both sexes, and the whole
city, should never cease charming themselves with the strains of which
we have spoken; and that there should be every sort of change and
variation of them in order to take away the effect of sameness, so that
the singers may always receive pleasure from their hymns, and may never
weary of them?
Cle. Every one will agree.
Ath. Where, then, will that best part of our city which, by reason of
age and intelligence, has the greatest influence, sing these fairest of
strains, which are to do so much good? Shall we be so foolish as to let
them off who would give us the most beautiful and also the most useful
of songs?
Cle. But, says the argument, we cannot let them off.
Ath. Then how can we carry out our purpose with decorum? Will this be
the way?
Cle. What?
Ath. When a man is advancing in years, he is afraid and reluctant to
sing; — he has no pleasure in his own performances; and if compulsion is
used, he will be more and more ashamed, the older and more discreet he
grows; — is not this true?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Well, and will he not be yet more ashamed if he has to stand up and
sing in the theatre to a mixed audience? — and if moreover when he is
required to do so, like the other choirs who contend for prizes, and
have been trained under a singing master, he is pinched and hungry, he
will certainly have a feeling of shame and discomfort which will make
him very unwilling to exhibit.
Cle. No doubt.
Ath. How, then, shall we reassure him, and get him to sing? Shall we
begin by enacting that boys shall not taste wine at all until they are
eighteen years of age; we will tell them that fire must not be poured
upon fire, whether in the body or in the soul, until they begin to go to
work — this is a precaution which has to be taken against the
excitableness of youth; — afterwards they may taste wine in moderation
up to the age of thirty, but while a man is young he should abstain
altogether from intoxication and from excess of wine; when, at length,
he has reached forty years, after dinner at a public mess, he may invite
not only the other Gods, but Dionysus above all, to the mystery and
festivity of the elder men, making use of the wine which he has given
men to lighten the sourness of old age; that in age we may renew our
youth, and forget our sorrows; and also in order that the nature of the
soul, like iron melted in the fire, may become softer and so more
impressible. In the first place, will not any one who is thus mellowed
be more ready and less ashamed to sing — I do not say before a large
audience, but before a moderate company; nor yet among strangers, but
among his familiars, and, as we have often said, to chant, and to
enchant?
Cle. He will be far more ready.
Ath. There will be no impropriety in our using such a method of
persuading them to join with us in song.
Cle. None at all.
Ath. And what strain will they sing, and what muse will they hymn? The
strain should clearly be one suitable to them.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And what strain is suitable for heroes? Shall they sing a choric
strain?
Cle. Truly, Stranger, we of Crete and Lacedaemon know no strain other
than that which we have learnt and been accustomed to sing in our
chorus.
Ath. I dare say; for you have never acquired the knowledge of the most
beautiful kind of song, in your military way of life, which is modelled
after the camp, and is not like that of dwellers in cities; and you have
your young men herding and feeding together like young colts. No one
takes his own individual colt and drags him away from his fellows
against his will, raging and foaming, and gives him a groom to attend to
him alone, and trains and rubs him down privately, and gives him the
qualities in education which will make him not only a good soldier, but
also a governor of a state and of cities. Such an one, as we said at
first, would be a greater warrior than he of whom Tyrtaeus sings; and he
would honour courage everywhere, but always as the fourth, and not as
the first part of virtue, either in individuals or states.
Cle. Once more, Stranger, I must complain that you depreciate our
lawgivers.
Ath. Not intentionally, if at all, my good friend; but whither the
argument leads, thither let us follow; for if there be indeed some
strain of song more beautiful than that of the choruses or the public
theatres, I should like to impart it to those who, as we say, are
ashamed of these, and want to have the best.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. When things have an accompanying charm, either the best thing in
them is this very charm, or there is some rightness or utility possessed
by them; — for example, I should say that eating and drinking, and the
use of food in general, have an accompanying charm which we call
pleasure; but that this rightness and utility is just the healthfulness
of the things served up to us, which is their true rightness.
Cle. Just so.
Ath. Thus, too, I should say that learning has a certain accompanying
charm which is the pleasure; but that the right and the profitable, the
good and the noble, are qualities which the truth gives to it.
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. And so in the imitative arts — if they succeed in making
likenesses, and are accompanied by pleasure, may not their works be said
to have a charm?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. But equal proportions, whether of quality or quantity, and not
pleasure, speaking generally, would give them truth or rightness.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. Then that only can be rightly judged by the standard of pleasure,
which makes or furnishes no utility or truth or likeness, nor on the
other hand is productive of any hurtful quality, but exists solely for
the sake of the accompanying charm; and the term “pleasure” is most
appropriately applied to it when these other qualities are absent.
Cle. You are speaking of harmless pleasure, are you not?
Ath. Yes; and this I term amusement, when doing neither harm nor good in
any degree worth speaking of.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Then, if such be our principles, we must assert that imitation is
not to be judged of by pleasure and false opinion; and this is true of
all equality, for the equal is not equal or the symmetrical symmetrical,
because somebody thinks or likes something, but they are to be judged of
by the standard of truth, and by no other whatever.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. Do we not regard all music as representative and imitative?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then, when any one says that music is to be judged of by pleasure,
his doctrine cannot be admitted; and if there be any music of which
pleasure is the criterion, such music is not to be sought out or deemed
to have any real excellence, but only that other kind of music which is
an imitation of the good.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And those who seek for the best kind of song and music ought not to
seek for that which is pleasant, but for that which is true; and the
truth of imitation consists, as we were saying, in rendering the thing
imitated according to quantity and quality.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And every one will admit that musical compositions are all
imitative and representative. Will not poets and spectators and actors
all agree in this?
Cle. They will.
Ath. Surely then he who would judge correctly must know what each
composition is; for if he does not know what is the character and
meaning of the piece, and what it represents, he will never discern
whether the intention is true or false.
Cle. Certainly not.
Ath. And will he who does not know what is true be able to distinguish
what is good and bad? My statement is not very clear; but perhaps you
will understand me better if I put the matter in another way.
Cle. How?
Ath. There are ten thousand likenesses of objects of sight?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And can he who does not know what the exact object is which is
imitated, ever know whether the resemblance is truthfully executed? I
mean, for example, whether a statue has the proportions of a body, and
the true situation of the parts; what those proportions are, and how the
parts fit into one another in due order; also their colours and
conformations, or whether this is all confused in the execution: do you
think that any one can know about this, who does not know what the
animal is which has been imitated?
Cle. Impossible.
Ath. But even if we know that the thing pictured or sculptured is a man,
who has received at the hand of the artist all his proper parts and
colours and shapes, must we not also know whether the work is beautiful
or in any respect deficient in beauty?
Cle. If this were not required, Stranger, we should all of us be judges
of beauty.
Ath. Very true; and may we not say that in everything imitated, whether
in drawing, music, or any other art, he who is to be a competent judge
must possess three things; — he must know, in the first place, of what
the imitation is; secondly, he must know that it is true; and thirdly,
that it has been well executed in words and melodies and rhythms?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then let us not faint in discussing the peculiar difficulty of
music.
Music is more celebrated than any other kind of imitation, and therefore
requires the greatest care of them all. For if a man makes a mistake
here, he may do himself the greatest injury by welcoming evil
dispositions, and the mistake may be very difficult to discern, because
the poets are artists very inferior in character to the Muses
themselves, who would never fall into the monstrous error of assigning
to the words of men the gestures and songs of women; nor after combining
the melodies with the gestures of freemen would they add on the rhythms
of slaves and men of the baser sort; nor, beginning with the rhythms and
gestures of freemen, would they assign to them a melody or words which
are of an opposite character; nor would they mix up the voices and
sounds of animals and of men and instruments, and every other sort of
noise, as if they were all one. But human poets are fond of introducing
this sort of inconsistent mixture, and so make themselves ridiculous in
the eyes of those who, as Orpheus says, “are ripe for true pleasure.”
The experienced see all this confusion, and yet the poets go on and make
still further havoc by separating the rhythm and the figure of the dance
from the melody, setting bare words to metre, and also separating the
melody and the rhythm from the words, using the lyre or the flute alone.
For when there are no words, it is very difficult to recognize the
meaning of the harmony and rhythm, or to see that any worthy object is
imitated by them.
And we must acknowledge that all this sort of thing, which aims only at
swiftness and smoothness and a brutish noise, and uses the flute and the
lyre not as the mere accompaniments of the dance and song, is
exceedingly coarse and tasteless. The use of either instrument, when
unaccompanied, leads to every sort of irregularity and trickery. This is
all rational enough. But we are considering not how our choristers, who
are from thirty to fifty years of age, and may be over fifty, are not to
use the Muses, but how they are to use them. And the considerations
which we have urged seem to show in what way these fifty year-old
choristers who are to sing, may be expected to be better trained. For
they need to have a quick perception and knowledge of harmonies and
rhythms; otherwise, how can they ever know whether a melody would be
rightly sung to the Dorian mode, or to the rhythm which the poet has
assigned to it?
Cle. Clearly they cannot.
Ath. The many are ridiculous in imagining that they know what is in
proper harmony and rhythm, and what is not, when they can only be made
to sing and step in rhythm by force; it never occurs to them that they
are ignorant of what they are doing. Now every melody is right when it
has suitable harmony and rhythm, and wrong when unsuitable.
Cle. That is most certain.
Ath. But can a man who does not know a thing, as we were saying, know
that the thing is right?
Cle. Impossible.
Ath. Then now, as would appear, we are making the discovery that our
newly-appointed choristers, whom we hereby invite and, although they are
their own masters, compel to sing, must be educated to such an extent as
to be able to follow the steps of the rhythm and the notes of the song,
that they may know the harmonies and rhythms, and be able to select what
are suitable for men of their age and character to sing; and may sing
them, and have innocent pleasure from their own performance, and also
lead younger men to welcome with dutiful delight good dispositions.
Having such training, they will attain a more accurate knowledge than
falls to the lot of the common people, or even of the poets themselves.
For the poet need not know the third point, viz., whether the imitation
is good or not, though he can hardly help knowing the laws of melody and
rhythm. But the aged chorus must know all the three, that they may
choose the best, and that which is nearest to the best; for otherwise
they will never be able to charm the souls of young men in the way of
virtue. And now the original design of the argument which was intended
to bring eloquent aid to the Chorus of Dionysus, has been accomplished
to the best of our ability, and let us see whether we were right: I
should imagine that a drinking assembly is likely to become more and
more tumultuous as the drinking goes on: this, as we were saying at
first, will certainly be the case.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Every man has a more than natural elevation; his heart is glad
within him, and he will say anything and will be restrained by nobody at
such a time; he fancies that he is able to rule over himself and all
mankind.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. Were we not saying that on such occasions the souls of the drinkers
become like iron heated in the fire, and grow softer and younger, and
are easily moulded by him who knows how to educate and fashion them,
just as when they were young, and that this fashioner of them is the
same who prescribed for them in the days of their youth, viz., the good
legislator; and that he ought to enact laws of the banquet, which, when
a man is confident, bold, and impudent, and unwilling to wait his turn
and have his share of silence and speech, and drinking and music, will
change his character into the opposite — such laws as will infuse into
him a just and noble fear, which will take up arms at the approach of
insolence, being that divine fear which we have called reverence and
shame?
Cle. True.
Ath. And the guardians of these laws and fellow-workers with them are
the calm and sober generals of the drinkers; and without their help
there is greater difficulty in fighting against drink than in fighting
against enemies when the commander of an army is not himself calm; and
he who is unwilling to obey them and the commanders of Dionysiac feasts
who are more than sixty years of age, shall suffer a disgrace as great
as he who disobeys military leaders, or even greater.
Cle. Right.
Ath. If, then, drinking and amusement were regulated in this way, would
not the companions of our revels be improved? they would part better
friends than they were, and not, as now enemies. Their whole intercourse
would be regulated by law and observant of it, and the sober would be
the leaders of the drunken.
Cle. I think so too, if drinking were regulated as you propose.
Ath. Let us not then simply censure the gift of Dionysus as bad and
unfit to be received into the State. For wine has many excellences, and
one pre-eminent one, about which there is a difficulty in speaking to
the many, from a fear of their misconceiving and misunderstanding what
is said.
Cle. To what do you refer?
Ath. There is a tradition or story, which has somehow crept about the
world, that Dionysus was robbed of his wits by his stepmother Here, and
that out of revenge he inspires Bacchic furies and dancing madnesses in
others; for which reason he gave men wine. Such traditions concerning
the Gods I leave to those who think that they may be safely uttered; I
only know that no animal at birth is mature or perfect in intelligence;
and in the intermediate period, in which he has not yet acquired his own
proper sense, he rages and roars without rhyme or reason; and when he
has once got on his legs he jumps about without rhyme or reason; and
this, as you will remember, has been already said by us to be the origin
of music and gymnastic.
Cle. To be sure, I remember.
Ath. And did we not say that the sense of harmony and rhythm sprang from
this beginning among men, and that Apollo and the Muses and Dionysus
were the Gods whom we had to thank for them?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. The other story implied that wine was given man out of revenge, and
in order to make him mad; but our present doctrine, on the contrary, is,
that wine was given him as a balm, and in order to implant modesty in
the soul, and health and strength in the body.
Cle. That, Stranger, is precisely what was said.
Ath. Then half the subject may now be considered to have been discussed;
shall we proceed to the consideration of the other half?
Cle. What is the other half, and how do you divide the subject?
Ath. The whole choral art is also in our view the whole of education;
and of this art, rhythms and harmonies form the part which has to do
with the voice.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. The movement of the body has rhythm in common with the movement of
the voice, but gesture is peculiar to it, whereas song is simply the
movement of the voice.
Cle. Most true.
Ath. And the sound of the voice which reaches and educates the soul, we
have ventured to term music.
Cle. We were right.
Ath. And the movement of the body, when regarded as an amusement, we
termed dancing; but when extended and pursued with a view to the
excellence of the body, this scientific training may be called
gymnastic.
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. Music, which was one half of the choral art, may be said to have
been completely discussed. Shall we proceed to the other half or not?
What would you like?
Cle. My good friend, when you are talking with a Cretan and
Lacedaemonian, and we have discussed music and not gymnastic, what
answer are either of us likely to make to such an enquiry?
Ath. An answer is contained in your question; and I understand and
accept what you say not only as an answer, but also as a command to
proceed with gymnastic.
Cle. You quite understand me; do as you say.
Ath. I will; and there will not be any difficulty in speaking
intelligibly to you about a subject with which both of you are far more
familiar than with music.
Cle. There will not.
Ath. Is not the origin of gymnastics, too, to be sought in the tendency
to rapid motion which exists in all animals; man, as we were saying,
having attained the sense of rhythm, created and invented dancing; and
melody arousing and awakening rhythm, both united formed the choral art?
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And one part of this subject has been already discussed by us, and
there still remains another to be discussed?
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. I have first a final word to add to my discourse about drink, if
you will allow me to do so.
Cle. What more have you to say?
Ath. I should say that if a city seriously means to adopt the practice
of drinking under due regulation and with a view to the enforcement of
temperance, and in like manner, and on the same principle, will allow of
other pleasures, designing to gain the victory over them in this way all
of them may be used. But if the State makes drinking an amusement only,
and whoever likes may drink whenever he likes, and with whom he likes,
and add to this any other indulgences, I shall never agree or allow that
this city or this man should practise drinking. I would go further than
the Cretans and Lacedaemonians, and am disposed rather to the law of the
Carthaginians, that no one while he is on a campaign should be allowed
to taste wine at all, but that he should drink water during all that
time, and that in the city no slave, male or female, should ever drink
wine; and that no magistrates should drink during their year of office,
nor should pilots of vessels or judges while on duty taste wine at all,
nor any one who is going to hold a consultation about any matter of
importance; nor in the daytime at all, unless in consequence of exercise
or as medicine; nor again at night, when any one, either man or woman,
is minded to get children. There are numberless other cases also in
which those who have good sense and good laws ought not to drink wine,
so that if what I say is true, no city will need many vineyards. Their
husbandry and their way of life in general will follow an appointed
order, and their cultivation of the vine will be the most limited and
the least common of their employments. And this, Stranger, shall be the
crown of my discourse about wine, if you agree.
Cle. Excellent: we agree.
BOOK III
Athenian Stranger. Enough of this. And what, then, is to be regarded as
the origin of government? Will not a man be able to judge of it best
from a point of view in which he may behold the progress of states and
their transitions to good or evil?
Cleinias. What do you mean?
Ath. I mean that he might watch them from the point of view of time, and
observe the changes which take place in them during infinite ages.
Cle. How so?
Ath. Why, do you think that you can reckon the time which has elapsed
since cities first existed and men were citizens of them?
Cle. Hardly.
Ath. But are sure that it must be vast and incalculable?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And have not thousands and thousands of cities come into being
during this period and as many perished? And has not each of them had
every form of government many times over, now growing larger, now
smaller, and again improving or declining?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. Let us endeavour to ascertain the cause of these changes; for that
will probably explain the first origin and development of forms of
government.
Cle. Very good. You shall endeavour to impart your thoughts to us, and
we will make an effort to understand you.
Ath. Do you believe that there is any truth in ancient traditions?
Cle. What traditions?
Ath. The traditions about the many destructions of mankind which have
been occasioned by deluges and pestilences, and in many other ways, and
of the survival of a remnant?
Cle. Every one is disposed to believe them.
Ath. Let us consider one of them, that which was caused by the famous
deluge.
Cle. What are we to observe about it?
Ath. I mean to say that those who then escaped would only be hill
shepherds — small sparks of the human race preserved on the tops of
mountains.
Cle. Clearly.
Ath. Such survivors would necessarily be unacquainted with the arts and
the various devices which are suggested to the dwellers in cities by
interest or ambition, and with all the wrongs which they contrive
against one another.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Let us suppose, then, that the cities in the plain and on the
seacoast were utterly destroyed at that time.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Would not all implements have then perished and every other
excellent invention of political or any other sort of wisdom have
utterly disappeared?
Cle. Why, yes, my friend; and if things had always continued as they are
at present ordered, how could any discovery have ever been made even in
the least particular? For it is evident that the arts were unknown
during ten thousand times ten thousand years. And no more than a
thousand or two thousand years have elapsed since the discoveries of
Daedalus, Orpheus and Palamedes — since Marsyas and Olympus invented
music, and Amphion the lyre — not to speak of numberless other
inventions which are but of yesterday.
Ath. Have you forgotten, Cleinias, the name of a friend who is really of
yesterday?
Cle. I suppose that you mean Epimenides.
Ath. The same, my friend; he does indeed far overleap the heads of all
mankind by his invention; for he carried out in practice, as you
declare, what of old Hesiod only preached.
Cle. Yes, according to our tradition.
Ath. After the great destruction, may we not suppose that the state of
man was something of this sort: In the beginning of things there was a
fearful illimitable desert and a vast expanse of land; a herd or two of
oxen would be the only survivors of the animal world; and there might be
a few goats, these too hardly enough to maintain the shepherds who
tended them?
Cle. True.
Ath. And of cities or governments or legislation, about which we are now
talking, do you suppose that they could have any recollection at all?
Cle. None whatever.
Ath. And out of this state of things has there not sprung all that we
now are and have: cities and governments, and arts and laws, and a great
deal of vice and a great deal of virtue?
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. Why, my good friend, how can we possibly suppose that those who
knew nothing of all the good and evil of cities could have attained
their full development, whether of virtue or of vice?
Cle. I understand your meaning, and you are quite right.
Ath. But, as time advanced and the race multiplied, the world came to be
what the world is.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Doubtless the change was not made all in a moment, but little by
little, during a very long period of time.
Cle. A highly probable supposition.
Ath. At first, they would have a natural fear ringing in their ears
which would prevent their descending from the heights into the plain.
Cle. Of course.
Ath. The fewness of the survivors at that time would have made them all
the more desirous of seeing one another; but then the means of
travelling either by land or sea had been almost entirely lost, as I may
say, with the loss of the arts, and there was great difficulty in
getting at one another; for iron and brass and all metals were jumbled
together and had disappeared in the chaos; nor was there any possibility
of extracting ore from them; and they had scarcely any means of felling
timber. Even if you suppose that some implements might have been
preserved in the mountains, they must quickly have worn out and
vanished, and there would be no more of them until the art of metallurgy
had again revived.
Cle. There could not have been.
Ath. In how many generations would this be attained?
Cle. Clearly, not for many generations.
Ath. During this period, and for some time afterwards, all the arts
which require iron and brass and the like would disappear.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Faction and war would also have died out in those days, and for
many reasons.
Cle. How would that be?
Ath. In the first place, the desolation of these primitive men would
create in them a feeling of affection and good-will towards one another;
and, secondly, they would have no occasion to quarrel about their
subsistence, for they would have pasture in abundance, except just at
first, and in some particular cases; and from their pasture-land they
would obtain the greater part of their food in a primitive age, having
plenty of milk and flesh; moreover they would procure other food by the
chase, not to be despised either in quantity or quality. They would also
have abundance of clothing, and bedding, and dwellings, and utensils
either capable of standing on the fire or not; for the plastic and
weaving arts do not require any use of iron: and God has given these two
arts to man in order to provide him with all such things, that, when
reduced to the last extremity, the human race may still grow and
increase. Hence in those days mankind were not very poor; nor was
poverty a cause of difference among them; and rich they could not have
been, having neither gold nor silver: such at that time was their
condition. And the community which has neither poverty nor riches will
always have the noblest principles; in it there is no insolence or
injustice, nor, again, are there any contentions or envyings. And
therefore they were good, and also because they were what is called
simple-minded; and when they were told about good and evil, they in
their simplicity believed what they heard to be very truth and practised
it. No one had the wit to suspect another of a falsehood, as men do now;
but what they heard about Gods and men they believed to be true, and
lived accordingly; and therefore they were in all respects such as we
have described them.
Cle. That quite accords with my views, and with those of my friend here.
Ath. Would not many generations living on in a simple manner, although
ruder, perhaps, and more ignorant of the arts generally, and in
particular of those of land or naval warfare, and likewise of other
arts, termed in cities legal practices and party conflicts, and
including all conceivable ways of hurting one another in word and deed;
— although inferior to those who lived before the deluge, or to the men
of our day in these respects, would they not, I say, be simpler and more
manly, and also more temperate and altogether more just? The reason has
been already explained.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. I should wish you to understand that what has preceded and what is
about to follow, has been, and will be said, with the intention of
explaining what need the men of that time had of laws, and who was their
lawgiver.
Cle. And thus far what you have said has been very well said.
Ath. They could hardly have wanted lawgivers as yet; nothing of that
sort was likely to have existed in their days, for they had no letters
at this early period; they lived by habit and the customs of their
ancestors, as they are called.
Cle. Probably.
Ath. But there was already existing a form of government which, if I am
not mistaken, is generally termed a lordship, and this still remains in
many places, both among Hellenes and barbarians, and is the government
which is declared by Homer to have prevailed among the Cyclopes: They
have neither councils nor judgments, but they dwell in hollow caves on
the tops of high mountains, and every one gives law to his wife and
children, and they do not busy themselves about one another.
Cle. That seems to be a charming poet of yours; I have read some other
verses of his, which are very clever; but I do not know much of him, for
foreign poets are very little read among the Cretans.
Megillus. But they are in Lacedaemon, and he appears to be the prince of
them all; the manner of life, however, which he describes is not
Spartan, but rather Ionian, and he seems quite to confirm what you are
saying, when he traces up the ancient state of mankind by the help of
tradition to barbarism.
Ath. Yes, he does confirm it; and we may accept his witness to the fact
that such forms of government sometimes arise.
Cle. We may.
Ath. And were not such states composed of men who had been dispersed in
single habitations and families by the poverty which attended the
devastations; and did not the eldest then rule among them, because with
them government originated in the authority of a father and a mother,
whom, like a flock of birds, they followed, forming one troop under the
patriarchal rule and sovereignty of their parents, which of all
sovereignties is the most just?
Cle. Very true.
Ath. After this they came together in greater numbers, and increased the
size of their cities, and betook themselves to husbandry, first of all
at the foot of the mountains, and made enclosures of loose walls and
works of defence, in order to keep off wild beasts; thus creating a
single large and common habitation.
Cle. Yes; at least we may suppose so.
Ath. There is another thing which would probably happen.
Cle. What?
Ath. When these larger habitations grew up out of the lesser original
ones, each of the lesser ones would survive in the larger; every family
would be under the rule of the eldest, and, owing to their separation
from one another, would have peculiar customs in things divine and
human, which they would have received from their several parents who had
educated them; and these customs would incline them to order, when the
parents had the element of order in their nature, and to courage, when
they had the element of courage. And they would naturally stamp upon
their children, and upon their children’s children, their own likings;
and, as we are saying, they would find their way into the larger
society, having already their own peculiar laws.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And every man surely likes his own laws best, and the laws of
others not so well.
Cle. True.
Ath. Then now we seem to have stumbled upon the beginnings of
legislation.
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. The next step will be that these persons who have met together,
will select some arbiters, who will review the laws of all of them, and
will publicly present such as they approve to the chiefs who lead the
tribes, and who are in a manner their kings, allowing them to choose
those which they think best. These persons will themselves be called
legislators, and will appoint the magistrates, framing some sort of
aristocracy, or perhaps monarchy, out of the dynasties or lordships, and
in this altered state of the government they will live.
Cle. Yes, that would be the natural order of things.
Ath. Then, now let us speak of a third form of government, in which all
other forms and conditions of polities and cities concur.
Cle. What is that?
Ath. The form which in fact Homer indicates as following the second.
This third form arose when, as he says, Dardanus founded Dardania: For
not as yet had the holy Ilium been built on the plain to be a city of
speaking men; but they were still dwelling at the foot of
many-fountained Ida. — For indeed, in these verses, and in what he said
of the Cyclopes, he speaks the words of God and nature; for poets are a
divine race and often in their strains, by the aid of the Muses and the
Graces, they attain truth.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. Then now let us proceed with the rest of our tale, which will
probably be found to illustrate in some degree our proposed design:
Shall we do so?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. Ilium was built, when they descended from the mountain, in a large
and fair plain, on a sort of low hill, watered by many rivers descending
from Ida.
Cle. Such is the tradition.
Ath. And we must suppose this event to have taken place many ages after
the deluge?
Ath. A marvellous forgetfulness of the former destruction would appear
to have come over them, when they placed their town right under numerous
streams flowing from the heights, trusting for their security to not
very high hills, either.
Cle. There must have been a long interval, clearly.
Ath. And, as population increased, many other cities would begin to be
inhabited.
Cle. Doubtless.
Ath. Those cities made war against Troy — by sea as well as land — for
at that time men were ceasing to be afraid of the sea.
Cle. Clearly.
Ath. The Achaeans remained ten years, and overthrew Troy.
Cle. True.
Ath. And during the ten years in which the Achaeans were besieging
Ilium, the homes of the besiegers were falling into an evil plight.
Their youth revolted; and when the soldiers returned to their own cities
and families, they did not receive them properly, and as they ought to
have done, and numerous deaths, murders, exiles, were the consequence.
The exiles came again, under a new name, no longer Achaeans, but Dorians
— a name which they derived from Dorieus; for it was he who gathered
them together. The rest of the story is told by you Lacedaemonians as
part of the history of Sparta.
Meg. To be sure.
Ath. Thus, after digressing from the original subject of laws into music
and drinking-bouts, the argument has, providentially, come back to the
same point, and presents to us another handle. For we have reached the
settlement of Lacedaemon; which, as you truly say, is in laws and in
institutions the sister of Crete. And we are all the better for the
digression, because we have gone through various governments and
settlements, and have been present at the foundation of a first, second,
and third state, succeeding one another in infinite time. And now there
appears on the horizon a fourth state or nation which was once in
process of settlement and has continued settled to this day. If, out of
all this, we are able to discern what is well or ill settled, and what
laws are the salvation and what are the destruction of cities, and what
changes would make a state happy, O Megillus and Cleinias, we may now
begin again, unless we have some fault to find with the previous
discussion.
Meg. If some God, Stranger, would promise us that our new enquiry about
legislation would be as good and full as the present, I would go a great
way to hear such another, and would think that a day as long as this —
and we are now approaching the longest day of the year — was too short
for the discussion.
Ath. Then I suppose that we must consider this subject?
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. Let us place ourselves in thought at the moment when Lacedaemon and
Argos and Messene and the rest of the Peloponnesus were all in complete
subjection, Megillus, to your ancestors; for afterwards, as the legend
informs us, they divided their army into three portions, and settled
three cities, Argos, Messene, Lacedaemon.
Meg. True.
Ath. Temenus was the king of Argos, Cresphontes of Messene, Procles and
Eurysthenes of Lacedaemon.
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. To these kings all the men of that day made oath that they would
assist them, if any one subverted their kingdom.
Meg. True.
Ath. But can a kingship be destroyed, or was any other form of
government ever destroyed, by any but the rulers themselves? No indeed,
by Zeus. Have we already forgotten what was said a little while ago?
Meg. No.
Ath. And may we not now further confirm what was then mentioned? For we
have come upon facts which have brought us back again to the same
principle; so that, in resuming the discussion, we shall not be
enquiring about an empty theory, but about events which actually
happened. The case was as follows: Three royal heroes made oath to three
cities which were under a kingly government, and the cities to the
kings, that both rulers and subjects should govern and be governed
according to the laws which were common to all of them: the rulers
promised that as time and the race went forward they would not make
their rule more arbitrary; and the subjects said that, if the rulers
observed these conditions, they would never subvert or permit others to
subvert those kingdoms; the kings were to assist kings and peoples when
injured, and the peoples were to assist peoples and kings in like
manner. Is not this the fact?
Meg. Yes.
Ath. And the three states to whom these laws were given, whether their
kings or any others were the authors of them, had therefore the greatest
security for the maintenance of their constitutions?
Meg. What security?
Ath. That the other two states were always to come to the rescue against
a rebellious third.
Meg. True.
Ath. Many persons say that legislators ought to impose such laws as the
mass of the people will be ready to receive; but this is just as if one
were to command gymnastic masters or physicians to treat or cure their
pupils or patients in an agreeable manner.
Meg. Exactly.
Ath. Whereas the physician may often be too happy if he can restore
health, and make the body whole, without any very great infliction of
pain.
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. There was also another advantage possessed by the men of that day,
which greatly lightened the task of passing laws.
Meg. What advantage?
Ath. The legislators of that day, when they equalized property, escaped
the great accusation which generally arises in legislation, if a person
attempts to disturb the possession of land, or to abolish debts, because
he sees that without this reform there can never be any real equality.
Now, in general, when the legislator attempts to make a new settlement
of such matters, every one meets him with the cry, that “he is not to
disturb vested interests” — declaring with imprecations that he is
introducing agrarian laws and cancelling of debts, until a man is at his
wits end; whereas no one could quarrel with the Dorians for distributing
the land — there was nothing to hinder them; and as for debts, they had
none which were considerable or of old standing.
Meg. Very true.
Ath. But then, my good friends, why did the settlement and legislation
of their country turn out so badly?
Meg. How do you mean; and why do you blame them?
Ath. There were three kingdoms, and of these, two quickly corrupted
their original constitution and laws, and the only one which remained
was the Spartan.
Meg. The question which you ask is not easily answered.
Ath. And yet must be answered when we are enquiring about laws, this
being our old man’s sober game of play, whereby we beguile the way, as I
was saying when we first set out on our journey.
Meg. Certainly; and we must find out why this was.
Ath. What laws are more worthy of our attention than those which have
regulated such cities? or what settlements of states are greater or more
famous?
Meg. I know of none.
Ath. Can we doubt that your ancestors intended these institutions not
only for the protection of Peloponnesus, but of all the Hellenes. in
case they were attacked by the barbarian? For the inhabitants of the
region about Ilium, when they provoked by their insolence the Trojan
war, relied upon the power of the Assyrians and the Empire of Ninus,
which still existed and had a great prestige; the people of those days
fearing the united Assyrian Empire just as we now fear the Great King.
And the second capture of Troy was a serious offence against them,
because Troy was a portion of the Assyrian Empire. To meet the danger
the single army was distributed between three cities by the royal
brothers, sons of Heracles — a fair device, as it seemed, and a far
better arrangement than the expedition against Troy. For, firstly, the
people of that day had, as they thought, in the Heraclidae better
leaders than the Pelopidae; in the next place, they considered that
their army was superior in valour to that which went against Troy; for,
although the latter conquered the Trojans, they were themselves
conquered by the HeraclidaeAchaeans by Dorians. May we not suppose that
this was the intention with which the men of those days framed the
constitutions of their states?
Meg. Quite true.
Ath. And would not men who had shared with one another many dangers, and
were governed by a single race of royal brothers, and had taken the
advice of oracles, and in particular of the Delphian Apollo, be likely
to think that such states would be firmly and lastingly established?
Meg. Of course they would.
Ath. Yet these institutions, of which such great expectations were
entertained, seem to have all rapidly vanished away; with the exception,
as I was saying, of that small part of them which existed in
yourland.And this third part has never to this day ceased warring
against the two others; whereas, if the original idea had been carried
out, and they had agreed to be one, their power would have been
invincible in war.
Meg. No doubt.
Ath. But what was the ruin of this glorious confederacy? Here is a
subject well worthy of consideration.
Meg. Certainly, no one will ever find more striking instances of laws or
governments being the salvation or destruction of great and noble
interests, than are here presented to his view.
Ath. Then now we seem to have happily arrived at a real and important
question.
Meg. Very true.
Ath. Did you never remark, sage friend, that all men, and we ourselves
at this moment, often fancy that they see some beautiful thing which
might have effected wonders if any one had only known how to make a
right use of it in some way; and yet this mode of looking at things may
turn out after all to be a mistake, and not according to nature, either
in our own case or in any other?
Meg. To what are you referring, and what do you mean?
Ath. I was thinking of my own admiration of the aforesaid Heracleid
expedition, which was so noble, and might have had such wonderful
results for the Hellenes, if only rightly used; and I was just laughing
at myself.
Meg. But were you not right and wise in speaking as you did, and we in
assenting to you?
Ath. Perhaps; and yet I cannot help observing that any one who sees
anything great or powerful, immediately has the feeling that — “If the
owner only knew how to use his great and noble possession, how happy
would he be, and what great results would he achieve!”
Meg. And would he not be justified?
Ath. Reflect; in what point of view does this sort of praise appear
just: First, in reference to the question in hand: If the then
commanders had known how to arrange their army properly, how would they
have attained success? Would not this have been the way? They would have
bound them all firmly together and preserved them for ever, giving them
freedom and dominion at pleasure, combined with the power of doing in
the whole world,
Hellenic and barbarian, whatever they and their descendants desired.
What other aim would they have had?
Meg. Very good.
Ath. Suppose any one were in the same way to express his admiration at
the sight of great wealth or family honour, or the like, he would praise
them under the idea that through them he would attain either all or the
greater and chief part of what he desires.
Meg. He would.
Ath. Well, now, and does not the argument show that there is one common
desire of all mankind?
Meg. What is it?
Ath. The desire which a man has, that all things, if possible — at any
rate, things human — may come to pass in accordance with his soul’s
desire.
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. And having this desire always, and at every time of life, in youth,
in manhood, in age, he cannot help always praying for the fulfilment of
it.
Meg. No doubt.
Ath. And we join in the prayers of our friends, and ask for them what
they ask for themselves.
Meg. We do.
Ath. Dear is the son to the father — the younger to the elder.
Meg. Of course.
Ath. And yet the son often prays to obtain things which the father prays
that he may not obtain.
Meg. When the son is young and foolish, you mean?
Ath. Yes; or when the father, in the dotage of age or the heat of youth,
having no sense of right and justice, prays with fervour, under the
influence of feelings akin to those of Theseus when he cursed the
unfortunate Hippolytus, do you imagine that the son, having a sense of
right and justice, will join in his father’s prayers?
Meg. I understand you to mean that a man should not desire or be in a
hurry to have all things according to his wish, for his wish may be at
variance with his reason. But every state and every individual ought to
pray and strive for wisdom.
Ath. Yes; and I remember, and you will remember, what I said at first,
that a statesman and legislator ought to ordain laws with a view to
wisdom; while you were arguing that the good lawgiver ought to order all
with a view to war. And to this I replied that there were four virtues,
but that upon your view one of them only was the aim of legislation;
whereas you ought to regard all virtue, and especially that which comes
first, and is the leader of all the rest — I mean wisdom and mind and
opinion, having affection and desire in their train. And now the
argument returns to the same point, and I say once more, in jest if you
like, or in earnest if you like, that the prayer of a fool is full of
danger, being likely to end in the opposite of what he desires. And if
you would rather receive my words in earnest, I am willing that you
should; and you will find, I suspect, as I have said already, that not
cowardice was the cause of the ruin of the Dorian kings and of their
whole design, nor ignorance of military matters, either on the part of
the rulers or of their subjects; but their misfortunes were due to their
general degeneracy, and especially to their ignorance of the most
important human affairs. That was then, and is still, and always will be
the case, as I will endeavour, if you will allow me, to make out and
demonstrate as well as I am able to you who are my friends, in the
course of the argument.
Cle. Pray go on, Stranger; — compliments are troublesome, but we will
show, not in word but in deed, how greatly we prize your words, for we
will give them our best attention; and that is the way in which a
freeman best shows his approval or disapproval.
Meg. Excellent, Cleinias; let us do as you say.
Cle. By all means, if Heaven wills. Go on.
Ath. Well, then, proceeding in the same train of thought, I say that the
greatest ignorance was the ruin of the Dorian power, and that now, as
then, ignorance is ruin. And if this be true, the legislator must
endeavour to implant wisdom in states, and banish ignorance to the
utmost of his power.
Cle. That is evident.
Ath. Then now consider what is really the greatest ignorance. I should
like to know whether you and Megillus would agree with me in what I am
about to say; for my opinion is.
Cle. What?
Ath. That the greatest ignorance is when a man hates that which he
nevertheless thinks to be good and noble, and loves and embraces that
which he knows to be unrighteous and evil. This disagreement between the
sense of pleasure and the judgment of reason in the soul is, in my
opinion, the worst ignorance; and also the greatest, because affecting
the great mass of the human soul; for the principle which feels pleasure
and pain in the individual is like the mass or populace in a state. And
when the soul is opposed to knowledge, or opinion, or reason, which are
her natural lords, that I call folly, just as in the state, when the
multitude refuses to obey their rulers and the laws; or, again, in the
individual, when fair reasonings have their habitation in the soul and
yet do no good, but rather the reverse of good. All these cases I term
the worst ignorance, whether in individuals or in states. You will
understand, Stranger, that I am speaking of something which is very
different from the ignorance of handicraftsmen.
Cle. Yes, my friend, we understand and agree.
Ath. Let us, then, in the first place declare and affirm that the
citizen who does not know these things ought never to have any kind of
authority entrusted to him: he must be stigmatized as ignorant, even
though he be versed in calculation and skilled in all sorts of
accomplishments, and feats of mental dexterity; and the opposite are to
be called wise, even although, in the words of the proverb, they know
neither how to read nor how to swim; and to them, as to men of sense,
authority is to be committed. For, O my friends, how can there be the
least shadow of wisdom when there is no harmony? There is none; but the
noblest and greatest of harmonies may be truly said to be the greatest
wisdom; and of this he is a partaker who lives according to reason;
whereas he who is devoid of reason is the destroyer of his house and the
very opposite of a saviour of the state: he is utterly ignorant of
political wisdom. Let this, then, as I was saying, be laid down by us.
Cle. Let it be so laid down.
Ath. I suppose that there must be rulers and subjects in states?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And what are the principles on which men rule and obey in cities,
whether great or small; and similarly in families? What are they, and
how many in number? Is there not one claim of authority which is always
just — that of fathers and mothers and in general of progenitors to rule
over their offspring?
Cle. There is.
Ath. Next follows the principle that the noble should rule over the
ignoble; and, thirdly, that the elder should rule and the younger obey?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. And, fourthly, that slaves should be ruled, and their masters rule?
Cle. Of course.
Ath. Fifthly, if I am not mistaken, comes the principle that the
stronger shall rule, and the weaker be ruled?
Cle. That is a rule not to be disobeyed.
Ath. Yes, and a rule which prevails very widely among all creatures, and
is according to nature, as the Theban poet Pindar once said; and the
sixth principle, and the greatest of all, is, that the wise should lead
and command, and the ignorant follow and obey; and yet, O thou most wise
Pindar, as I should reply him, this surely is not contrary to nature,
but according to nature, being the rule of law over willing subjects,
and not a rule of compulsion.
Cle. Most true.
Ath. There is a seventh kind of rule which is awarded by lot, and is
dear to the Gods and a token of good fortune: he on whom the lot falls
is a ruler, and he who fails in obtaining the lot goes away and is the
subject; and this we affirm to be quite just.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. “Then now,” as we say playfully to any of those who lightly
undertake the making of laws, “you see, legislator, the principles of
government, how many they are, and that they are naturally opposed to
each other. There we have discovered a fountain-head of seditions, to
which you must attend. And, first, we will ask you to consider with us,
how and in what respect the kings of Argos and Messene violated these
our maxims, and ruined themselves and the great and famous Hellenic
power of the olden time. Was it because they did not know how wisely
Hesiod spoke when he said that the half is often more than the whole?
His meaning was, that when to take the whole would be dangerous, and to
take the half would be the safe and moderate course, then the moderate
or better was more than the immoderate or worse.”
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And may we suppose this immoderate spirit to be more fatal when
found among kings than when among peoples?
Cle. The probability is that ignorance will be a disorder especially
prevalent among kings, because they lead a proud and luxurious life.
Ath. Is it not palpable that the chief aim of the kings of that time was
to get the better of the established laws, and that they were not in
harmony with the principles which they had agreed to observe by word and
oath? This want of harmony may have had the appearance of wisdom, but
was really, as we assert, the greatest ignorance, and utterly overthrew
the whole empire by dissonance and harsh discord.
Cle. Very likely.
Ath. Good; and what measures ought the legislator to have then taken in
order to avert this calamity? Truly there is no great wisdom in knowing,
and no great difficulty in telling, after the evil has happened; but to
have foreseen the remedy at the time would have taken a much wiser head
than ours.
Meg. What do you mean?
Ath. Any one who looks at what has occurred with you Lacedaemonians,
Megillus, may easily know and may easily say what ought to have been
done at that time.
Meg. Speak a little more clearly.
Ath. Nothing can be clearer than the observation which I am about to
make.
Meg. What is it?
Ath. That if any one gives too great a power to anything, too large a
sail to a vessel, too much food to the body, too much authority to the
mind, and does not observe the mean, everything is overthrown, and, in
the wantonness of excess runs in the one case to disorders, and in the
other to injustice, which is the child of excess. I mean to say, my dear
friends, that there is no soul of man, young and irresponsible, who will
be able to sustain the temptation of arbitrary power — no one who will
not, under such circumstances, become filled with folly, that worst of
diseases, and be hated by his nearest and dearest friends: when this
happens, his kingdom is undermined, and all his power vanishes from him.
And great legislators who know the mean should take heed of the danger.
As far as we can guess at this distance of time, what happened was as
follows:
Meg. What?
Ath. A God, who watched over Sparta, seeing into the future, gave you
two families of kings instead of one; and thus brought you more within
the limits of moderation. In the next place, some human wisdom mingled
with divine power, observing that the constitution of your government
was still feverish and excited, tempered your inborn strength and pride
of birth with the moderation which comes of age, making the power of
your twenty-eight elders equal with that of the kings in the most
important matters. But your third saviour, perceiving that your
government was still swelling and foaming, and desirous to impose a curb
upon it, instituted the Ephors, whose power he made to resemble that of
magistrates elected by lot; and by this arrangement the kingly office,
being compounded of the right elements and duly moderated, was
preserved, and was the means of preserving all the rest. Since, if there
had been only the original legislators, Temenus, Cresphontes, and their
contemporaries, as far as they were concerned not even the portion of
Aristodemus would have been preserved; for they had no proper experience
in legislation, or they would surely not have imagined that oaths would
moderate a youthful spirit invested with a power which might be
converted into a tyranny. Now that God has instructed us what sort of
government would have been or will be lasting, there is no wisdom, as I
have already said, in judging after the event; there is no difficulty in
learning from an example which has already occurred. But if any one
could have foreseen all this at the time, and had been able to moderate
the government of the three kingdoms and unite them into one, he might
have saved all the excellent institutions which were then conceived; and
no Persian or any other armament would have dared to attack us, or would
have regarded Hellas as a power to be despised.
Cle. True.
Ath. There was small credit to us, Cleinias, in defeating them; and the
discredit was, not that the conquerors did not win glorious victories
both by land and sea, but what, in my opinion, brought discredit was,
first of all, the circumstance that of the three cities one only fought
on behalf of Hellas, and the two others were so utterly good for nothing
that the one was waging a mighty war against Lacedaemon, and was thus
preventing her from rendering assistance, while the city of Argos, which
had the precedence at the time of the distribution, when asked to aid in
repelling the barbarian, would not answer to the call, or give aid. Many
things might be told about Hellas in connection with that war which are
far from honourable; nor, indeed, can we rightly say that Hellas
repelled the invader; for the truth is, that unless the Athenians and
Lacedaemonians, acting in concert, had warded off the impending yoke,
all the tribes of Hellas would have been fused in a chaos of Hellenes
mingling with one another, of barbarians mingling with Hellenes, and
Hellenes with barbarians; just as nations who are now subject to the
Persian power, owing to unnatural separations and combinations of them,
are dispersed and scattered, and live miserably. These, Cleinias and
Megillus, are the reproaches which we have to make against statesmen and
legislators, as they are called, past and present, if we would analyse
the causes of their failure, and find out what else might have been
done. We said, for instance, just now, that there ought to be no great
and unmixed powers; and this was under the idea that a state ought to be
free and wise and harmonious, and that a legislator ought to legislate
with a view to this end. Nor is there any reason to be surprised at our
continually proposing aims for the legislator which appear not to be
always the same; but we should consider when we say that temperance is
to be the aim, or wisdom is to be the aim, or friendship is to be the
aim, that all these aims are really the same; and if so, a variety in
the modes of expression ought not to disturb us.
Cle. Let us resume the argument in that spirit. And now, speaking of
friendship and wisdom and freedom, I wish that you would tell me at
what, in your opinion, the legislator should aim.
Ath. Hear me, then: there are two mother forms of states from which the
rest may be truly said to be derived; and one of them may be called
monarchy and the other democracy: the Persians have the highest form of
the one, and we of the other; almost all the rest, as I was saying, are
variations of these. Now, if you are to have liberty and the combination
of friendship with wisdom, you must have both these forms of government
in a measure; the argument emphatically declares that no city can be
well governed which is not made up of both.
Cle. Impossible.
Ath. Neither the one, if it be exclusively and excessively attached to
monarchy, nor the other, if it be similarly attached to freedom,
observes moderation; but your states, the Laconian and Cretan, have more
of it; and the same was the case with the Athenians and Persians of old
time, but now they have less. Shall I tell you why?
Cle. By all means, if it will tend to elucidate our subject.
Ath. Hear, then: There was a time when the Persians had more of the
state which is a mean between slavery and freedom. In the reign of Cyrus
they were freemen and also lords of many others: the rulers gave a share
of freedom to the subjects, and being treated as equals, the soldiers
were on better terms with their generals, and showed themselves more
ready in the hour of danger. And if there was any wise man among them,
who was able to give good counsel, he imparted his wisdom to the public;
for the king was not jealous, but allowed him full liberty of speech,
and gave honour to those who could advise him in any matter. And the
nation waxed in all respects, because there was freedom and friendship
and communion of mind among them.
Cle. That certainly appears to have been the case.
Ath. How, then, was this advantage lost under Cambyses, and again
recovered under Darius? Shall I try to divine?
Cle. The enquiry, no doubt, has a bearing upon our subject.
Ath. I imagine that Cyrus, though a great and patriotic general, had
never given his mind to education, and never attended to the order of
his household.
Cle. What makes you say so?
Ath. I think that from his youth upwards he was a soldier, and entrusted
the education of his children to the women; and they brought them up
from their childhood as the favourites of fortune, who were blessed
already, and needed no more blessings. They thought that they were happy
enough, and that no one should be allowed to oppose them in any way, and
they compelled every one to praise all that they said or did. This was
how they brought them up.
Cle. A splendid education truly!
Ath. Such an one as women were likely to give them, and especially
princesses who had recently grown rich, and in the absence of the men,
too, who were occupied in wars and dangers, and had no time to look
after them.
Cle. What would you expect?
Ath. Their father had possessions of cattle and sheep, and many herds of
men and other animals, but he did not consider that those to whom he was
about to make them over were not trained in his own calling, which was
Persian; for the Persians are shepherdssons of a rugged land, which is a
stern mother, and well fitted to produce sturdy race able to live in the
open air and go without sleep, and also to fight, if fighting is
required. He did not observe that his sons were trained differently;
through the so-called blessing of being royal they were educated in the
Median fashion by women and eunuchs, which led to their becoming such as
people do become when they are brought up unreproved. And so, after the
death of Cyrus, his sons, in the fulness of luxury and licence, took the
kingdom, and first one slew the other because he could not endure a
rival; and, afterwards, the slayer himself, mad with wine and brutality,
lost his kingdom through the Medes and the Eunuch, as they called him,
who despised the folly of Cambyses.
Cle. So runs the tale, and such probably were the facts.
Ath. Yes; and the tradition says, that the empire came back to the
Persians, through Darius and the seven chiefs.
Cle. True.
Ath. Let us note the rest of the story. Observe, that Darius was not the
son of a king, and had not received a luxurious education. When he came
to the throne, being one of the seven, he divided the country into seven
portions, and of this arrangement there are some shadowy traces still
remaining; he made laws upon the principle of introducing universal
equality in the order of the state, and he embodied in his laws the
settlement of the tribute which Cyrus promised — thus creating a feeling
of friendship and community among all the Persians, and attaching the
people to him with money and gifts. Hence his armies cheerfully acquired
for him countries as large as those which Cyrus had left behind him.
Darius was succeeded by his son Xerxes; and he again was brought up in
the royal and luxurious fashion. Might we not most justly say: “O
Darius, how came you to bring up Xerxes in the same way in which Cyrus
brought up Cambyses, and not to see his fatal mistake?” For Xerxes,
being the creation of the same education, met with much the same fortune
as Cambyses; and from that time until now there has never been a really
great king among the Persians, although they are all called Great. And
their degeneracy is not to be attributed to chance, as I maintain; the
reason is rather the evil life which is generally led by the sons of
very rich and royal persons; for never will boy or man, young or old,
excel in virtue, who has been thus educated. And this, I say, is what
the legislator has to consider, and what at the present moment has to be
considered by us. Justly may you, O Lacedaemonians, be praised, in that
you do not give special honour or a special education to wealth rather
than to poverty, or to a royal rather than to a private station, where
the divine and inspired lawgiver has not originally commanded them to be
given. For no man ought to have pre-eminent honour in a state because he
surpasses others in wealth, any more than because he is swift of foot or
fair or strong, unless he have some virtue in him; nor even if he have
virtue, unless he have this particular virtue of temperance.
Meg. What do you mean, Stranger?
Ath. I suppose that courage is a part of virtue?
Meg. To be sure.
Ath. Then, now hear and judge for yourself: Would you like to have for a
fellow-lodger or neighbour a very courageous man, who had no control
over himself?
Meg. Heaven forbid!
Ath. Or an artist, who was clever in his profession, but a rogue?
Meg. Certainly not.
Ath. And surely justice does not grow apart from temperance?
Meg. Impossible.
Ath. Any more than our pattern wise man, whom we exhibited as having his
pleasures and pains in accordance with and corresponding to true reason,
can be intemperate?
Meg. No.
Ath. There is a further consideration relating to the due and undue
award of honours in states.
Meg. What is it?
Ath. I should like to know whether temperance without the other virtues,
existing alone in the soul of man, is rightly to be praised or blamed?
Meg. I cannot tell.
Ath. And that is the best answer; for whichever alternative you had
chosen, I think that you would have gone wrong.
Meg. I am fortunate.
Ath. Very good; a quality, which is a mere appendage of things which can
be praised or blamed, does not deserve an expression of opinion, but is
best passed over in silence.
Meg. You are speaking of temperance?
Ath. Yes; but of the other virtues, that which having this appendage is
also most beneficial, will be most deserving of honour, and next that
which is beneficial in the next degree; and so each of them will be
rightly honoured according to a regular order.
Meg. True.
Ath. And ought not the legislator to determine these classes?
Meg. Certainly he should.
Ath. Suppose that we leave to him the arrangement of details. But the
general division of laws according to their importance into a first and
second and third class, we who are lovers of law may make ourselves.
Meg. Very; good.
Ath. We maintain, then, that a State which would be safe and happy, as
far as the nature of man allows, must and ought to distribute honour and
dishonour in the right way. And the right way is to place the goods of
the soul first and highest in the scale, always assuming temperance to
be the condition of them; and to assign the second place to the goods of
the body; and the third place to money and property. And it any
legislator or state departs from this rule by giving money the place of
honour, or in any way preferring that which is really last, may we not
say, that he or the state is doing an unholy and unpatriotic thing?
Meg. Yes; let that be plainly declared.
Ath. The consideration of the Persian governments led us thus far to
enlarge. We remarked that the Persians grew worse and worse. And we
affirm the reason of this to have been, that they too much diminished
the freedom of the people, and introduced too much of despotism, and so
destroyed friendship and community of feeling. And when there is an end
of these, no longer do the governors govern on behalf of their subjects
or of the people, but on behalf of themselves; and if they think that
they can gain ever so small an advantage for themselves, they devastate
cities, and send fire and desolation among friendly races. And as they
hate ruthlessly and horribly, so are they hated; and when they want the
people to fight for them, they find no community of feeling or
willingness to risk their lives on their behalf; their untold myriads
are useless to them on the field of battle, and they think that their
salvation depends on the employment of mercenaries and strangers whom
they hire, as if they were in want of more men. And they cannot help
being stupid, since they proclaim by actions that the ordinary
distinctions of right and wrong which are made in a state are a trifle,
when compared with gold and silver.
Meg. Quite true.
Ath. And now enough of the Persians, and their present maladministration
of their government, which is owing to the excess of slavery and
despotism among them.
Meg. Good.
Ath. Next, we must pass in review the government of Attica in like
manner, and from this show that entire freedom and the absence of all
superior authority is not by any means so good as government by others
when properly limited, which was our ancient Athenian constitution at
the time when the Persians made their attack on Hellas, or, speaking
more correctly, on the whole continent of Europe.
There were four classes, arranged according to a property census, and
reverence was our queen and mistress, and made us willing to live in
obedience to the laws which then prevailed. Also the vastness of the
Persian armament, both by sea and on land, caused a helpless terror,
which made us more and more the servants of our rulers and of the laws;
and for all these reasons an exceeding harmony prevailed among us. About
ten years before the naval engagement at Salamis, Datis came, leading a
Persian host by command of Darius, which was expressly directed against
the Athenians and Eretrians, having orders to carry them away captive;
and these orders he was to execute under pain of death. Now Datis and
his myriads soon became complete masters of Eretria, and he sent a
fearful report to Athens that no Eretrian had escaped him; for the
soldiers of Datis had joined hands and netted the whole of Eretria. And
this report, whether well or ill founded, was terrible to all the
Hellenes, and above all to the Athenians, and they dispatched embassies
in all directions, but no one was willing to come to their relief, with
the exception of the Lacedaemonians; and they, either because they were
detained by the Messenian war, which was then going on, or for some
other reason of which we are not told, came a day too late for the
battle of Marathon. After a while, the news arrived of mighty
preparations being made, and innumerable threats came from the king.
Then, as time went on, a rumour reached us that Darius had died, and
that his son, who was young and hot-headed, had come to the throne and
was persisting in his design. The Athenians were under the impression
that the whole expedition was directed against them, in consequence of
the battle of Marathon; and hearing of the bridge over the Hellespont,
and the canal of Athos, and the host of ships, considering that there
was no salvation for them either by land or by sea, for there was no one
to help them, and remembering that in the first expedition, when the
Persians destroyed Eretria, no one came to their help, or would risk the
danger of an alliance with them, they thought that this would happen
again, at least on land; nor, when they looked to the sea, could they
descry any hope of salvation; for they were attacked by a thousand
vessels and more. One chance of safety remained, slight indeed and
desperate, but their only one.
They saw that on the former occasion they had gained a seemingly
impossible victory, and borne up by this hope, they found that their
only refuge was in themselves and in the Gods. All these things created
in them the spirit of friendship; there was the fear of the moment, and
there was that higher fear, which they had acquired by obedience to
their ancient laws, and which I have several times in the preceding
discourse called reverence, of which the good man ought to be a willing
servant, and of which the coward is independent and fearless. If this
fear had not possessed them, they would never have met the enemy, or
defended their temples and sepulchres and their country, and everything
that was near and dear to them, as they did; but little by little they
would have been all scattered and dispersed.
Meg. Your words, Athenian, are quite true, and worthy of yourself and of
your country.
Ath. They are true, Megillus; and to you, who have inherited the virtues
of your ancestors, I may properly speak of the actions of that day.
And I would wish you and Cleinias to consider whether my words have not
also a bearing on legislation; for I am not discoursing only for the
pleasure of talking, but for the argument’s sake. Please to remark that
the experience both of ourselves and the Persians was, in a certain
sense, the same; for as they led their people into utter servitude, so
we too led ours into all freedom. And now, how shall we proceed? for I
would like you to observe that our previous arguments have good deal to
say for themselves.
Meg. True; but I wish that you would give us a fuller explanation.
Ath. I will. Under the ancient laws, my friends, the people was not as
now the master, but rather the willing servant of the laws.
Meg. What laws do you mean?
Ath. In the first place, let us speak of the laws about music — that is
to say, such music as then existed — in order that we may trace the
growth of the excess of freedom from the beginning. Now music was early
divided among us into certain kinds and manners. One sort consisted of
prayers to the Gods, which were called hymns; and there was another and
opposite sort called lamentations, and another termed paeans, and
another, celebrating the birth of Dionysus, called, I believe,
“dithyrambs.” And they used the actual word “laws,” or nomoi, for
another kind of song; and to this they added the term “citharoedic.” All
these and others were duly distinguished, nor were the performers
allowed to confuse one style of music with another. And the authority
which determined and gave judgment, and punished the disobedient, was
not expressed in a hiss, nor in the most unmusical shouts of the
multitude, as in our days, nor in applause and clapping of hands. But
the directors of public instruction insisted that the spectators should
listen in silence to the end; and boys and their tutors, and the
multitude in general, were kept quiet by a hint from a stick. Such was
the good order which the multitude were willing to observe; they would
never have dared to give judgment by noisy cries. And then, as time went
on, the poets themselves introduced the reign of vulgar and lawless
innovation. They were men of genius, but they had no perception of what
is just and lawful in music; raging like Bacchanals and possessed with
inordinate delights — mingling lamentations with hymns, and paeans with
dithyrambs; imitating the sounds of the flute on the lyre, and making
one general confusion; ignorantly affirming that music has no truth,
and, whether good or bad, can only be judged of rightly by the pleasure
of the hearer. And by composing such licentious works, and adding to
them words as licentious, they have inspired the multitude with
lawlessness and boldness, and made them fancy that they can judge for
themselves about melody and song. And in this way the theatres from
being mute have become vocal, as though they had understanding of good
and bad in music and poetry; and instead of an aristocracy, an evil sort
of theatrocracy has grown up. For if the democracy which judged had only
consisted of educated persons, no fatal harm would have been done; but
in music there first arose the universal conceit of omniscience and
general lawlessness; — freedom came following afterwards, and men,
fancying that they knew what they did not know, had no longer any fear,
and the absence of fear begets shamelessness. For what is this
shamelessness, which is so evil a thing, but the insolent refusal to
regard the opinion of the better by reason of an over-daring sort of
liberty?
Meg. Very true.
Ath. Consequent upon this freedom comes the other freedom, of
disobedience to rulers; and then the attempt to escape the control and
exhortation of father, mother, elders, and when near the end, the
control of the laws also; and at the very end there is the contempt of
oaths and pledges, and no regard at all for the Gods — herein they
exhibit and imitate the old so called Titanic nature, and come to the
same point as the Titans when they rebelled against God, leading a life
of endless evils. But why have I said all this? I ask, because the
argument ought to be pulled up from time to time, and not be allowed to
run away, but held with bit and bridle, and then we shall not, as the
proverb says, fall off our ass. Let us then once more ask the question,
To what end has all this been said?
Meg. Very good.
Ath. This, then, has been said for the sake
Meg. Of what?
Ath. We were maintaining that the lawgiver ought to have three things in
view: first, that the city for which he legislates should be free; and
secondly, be at unity with herself; and thirdly, should have
understanding; — these were our principles, were they not?
Meg. Certainly.
Ath. With a view to this we selected two kinds of government, the
despotic, and the other the most free; and now we are considering which
of them is the right form: we took a mean in both cases, of despotism in
the one, and of liberty in the other, and we saw that in a mean they
attained their perfection; but that when they were carried to the
extreme of either, slavery or licence, neither party were the gainers.
Meg. Very true.
Ath. And that was our reason for considering the settlement of the
Dorian army, and of the city built by Dardanus at the foot of the
mountains, and the removal of cities to the seashore, and of our mention
of the first men, who were the survivors of the deluge. And all that was
previously said about music and drinking, and what preceded, was said
with the view of seeing how a state might be best administered, and how
an individual might best order his own life. And now, Megillus and
Cleinias, how can we put to the proof the value of our words?
Cle. Stranger, I think that I see how a proof of their value may be
obtained. This discussion of ours appears to me to have been singularly
fortunate, and just what I at this moment want; most auspiciously have
you and my friend Megillus come in my way.
For I will tell you what has happened to me; and I regard the
coincidence as a sort of omen. The greater part of Crete is going to
send out a colony, and they have entrusted the management of the affair
to the Cnosians; and the Cnosian government to me and nine others. And
they desire us to give them any laws which we please, whether taken from
the Cretan model or from any other; and they do not mind about their
being foreign if they are better. Grant me then this favour, which will
also be a gain to yourselves: Let us make a selection from what has been
said, and then let us imagine a State of which we will suppose ourselves
to be the original founders. Thus we shall proceed with our enquiry,
and, at the same time, I may have the use of the framework which you are
constructing, for the city which is in contemplation.
Ath. Good news, Cleinias; if Megillus has no objection, you may be sure
that I will do all in my power to please you.
Cle. Thank you.
Meg. And so will I.
Cle. Excellent; and now let us begin to frame the State.
BOOK IV
Athenian Stranger. And now, what will this city be? I do not mean to ask
what is or will hereafter be the name of the place; that may be
determined by the accident of locality or of the original settlement — a
river or fountain, or some local deity may give the sanction of a name
to the newly-founded city; but I do want to know what the situation is,
whether maritime or inland.
Cleinias. I should imagine, Stranger, that the city of which we are
speaking is about eighty stadia distant from the sea.
Ath. And are there harbours on the seaboard?
Cle. Excellent harbours, Stranger; there could not be better.
Ath. Alas! what a prospect! And is the surrounding country productive,
or in need of importations?
Cle. Hardly in need of anything.
Ath. And is there any neighbouring State?
Cle. None whatever, and that is the reason for selecting the place; in
days of old, there was a migration of the inhabitants, and the region
has been deserted from time immemorial.
Ath. And has the place a fair proportion of hill, and plain, and wood?
Cle. Like the rest of Crete in that.
Ath. You mean to say that there is more rock than plain?
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. Then there is some hope that your citizens may be virtuous: had you
been on the sea, and well provided with harbours, and an importing
rather than a producing country, some mighty saviour would have been
needed, and lawgivers more than mortal, if you were ever to have a
chance of preserving your state from degeneracy and discordance of
manners. But there is comfort in the eighty stadia; although the sea is
too near, especially if, as you say, the harbours are so good. Still we
may be content. The sea is pleasant enough as a daily companion, but has
indeed also a bitter and brackish quality; filling the streets with
merchants and shopkeepers, and begetting in the souls of men uncertain
and unfaithful ways — making the state unfriendly and unfaithful both to
her own citizens, and also to other nations. There is a consolation,
therefore, in the country producing all things at home; and yet, owing
to the ruggedness of the soil, not providing anything in great
abundance. Had there been abundance, there might have been a great
export trade, and a great return of gold and silver; which, as we may
safely affirm, has the most fatal results on a State whose aim is the
attainment of just and noble sentiments: this was said by us, if you
remember, in the previous discussion.
Cle. I remember, and am of opinion that we both were and are in the
right.
Ath. Well, but let me ask, how is the country supplied with timber for
ship-building?
Cle. There is no fir of any consequence, nor pine, and not much cypress;
and you will find very little stone-pine or plane-wood, which
shipwrights always require for the interior of ships.
Ath. These are also natural advantages.
Cle. Why so?
Ath. Because no city ought to be easily able to imitate its enemies in
what is mischievous.
Cle. How does that bear upon any of the matters of which we have been
speaking?
Ath. Remember, my good friend, what I said at first about the Cretan
laws, that they look to one thing only, and this, as you both agreed,
was war; and I replied that such laws, in so far as they tended to
promote virtue, were good; but in that they regarded a part only, and
not the whole of virtue, I disapproved of them. And now I hope that you
in your turn will follow and watch me if I legislate with a view to
anything but virtue, or with a view to a part of virtue only. For I
consider that the true lawgiver, like an archer, aims only at that on
which some eternal beauty is always attending, and dismisses everything
else, whether wealth or any other benefit, when separated from virtue. I
was saying that the imitation of enemies was a bad thing; and I was
thinking of a case in which a maritime people are harassed by enemies,
as the Athenians were by Minos (I do not speak from any desire to recall
past grievances); but he, as we know, was a great naval potentate, who
compelled the inhabitants of Attica to pay him a cruel tribute; and in
those days they had no ships of war as they now have, nor was the
country filled with ship-timber, and therefore they could not readily
build them. Hence they could not learn how to imitate their enemy at
sea, and in this way, becoming sailors themselves, directly repel their
enemies. Better for them to have lost many times over the seven youths,
than that heavy-armed and stationary troops should have been turned into
sailors, and accustomed to be often leaping on shore, and again to come
running back to their ships; or should have fancied that there was no
disgrace in not awaiting the attack of an enemy and dying boldly; and
that there were good reasons, and plenty of them, for a man throwing
away his arms, and betaking himself to flight — which is not
dishonourable, as people say, at certain times. This is the language of
naval warfare, and is anything but worthy of extraordinary praise. For
we should not teach bad habits, least of all to the best part of the
citizens. You may learn the evil of such a practice from Homer, by whom
Odysseus is introduced, rebuking Agamemnon because he desires to draw
down the ships to the sea at a time when the Achaeans are hard pressed
by the Trojans — he gets angry with him, and says: Who, at a time when
the battle is in full cry, biddest to drag the well-benched ships into
the sea, that the prayers of the Trojans may be accomplished yet more,
and high ruin falls upon us. For the Achaeans will not maintain the
battle, when the ships are drawn into the sea, but they will look behind
and will cease from strife; in that the counsel which you give will
prove injurious. You see that he quite knew triremes on the sea, in the
neighbourhood of fighting men, to be an evil; — lions might be trained
in that way to fly from a herd of deer. Moreover, naval powers which owe
their safety to ships, do not give honour to that sort of warlike
excellence which is most deserving of it. For he who owes his safety to
the pilot and the captain, and the oarsman, and all sorts of rather
inferior persons cannot rightly give honour to whom honour is due. But
how can a state be in a right condition which cannot justly award
honour?
Cle. It is hardly possible, I admit; and yet, Stranger, we Cretans are
in the habit of saying that the battle of Salamis was the salvation of
Hellas.
Ath. Why, yes; and that is an opinion which is widely spread both among
Hellenes and barbarians. But Megillus and I say rather, that the battle
of Marathon was the beginning, and the battle of Plataea the completion,
of the great deliverance, and that these battles by land made the
Hellenes better; whereas the sea-fights of Salamis and Artemisium — for
I may as well put them both together — made them no better, if I may say
so without offence about the battles which helped to save us. And in
estimating the goodness of a state, we regard both the situation of the
country and the order of the laws, considering that the mere
preservation and continuance of life is not the most honourable thing
for men, as the vulgar think, but the continuance of the best life,
while we live; and that again, if I am jot mistaken, is remark which has
been made already.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. Then we have only to ask whether we are taking the course which we
acknowledge to be the best for the settlement and legislation of states.
Cle. The best by far.
Ath. And now let me proceed to another question: Who are to be the
colonists? May any one come out of all Crete; and is the idea that the
population in the several states is too numerous for the means of
subsistence? For I suppose that you are not going to send out a general
invitation to any Hellene who likes to come. And yet I observe that to
your country settlers have come from Argos and Aegina and other parts of
Hellas. Tell me, then, whence do you draw your recruits in the present
enterprise?
Cle. They will come from all Crete; and of other Hellenes,
Peloponnesians will be most acceptable. For, as you truly observe, there
are Cretans of Argive descent; and the race of Cretans which has the
highest character at the present day is the Gortynian, and this has come
from Gortys in the Peloponnesus.
Ath. Cities find colonization in some respects easier if the colonists
are one race, which like a swarm of bees is sent out from a single
country, either when friends leave friends, owing to some pressure of
population or other similar necessity, or when a portion of a state is
driven by factions to emigrate. And there have been whole cities which
have taken flight when utterly conquered by a superior power in war.
This, however, which is in one way an advantage to the colonist or
legislator, in another point of view creates a difficulty. There is an
element of friendship in the community of race, and language, and
language, and laws, and in common temples and rites of worship; but
colonies which are of this homogeneous sort are apt to kick against any
laws or any form of constitution differing from that which they had at
home; and although the badness of their own laws may have been the cause
of the factions which prevailed among them, yet from the force of habit
they would fain preserve the very customs which were their ruin, and the
leader of the colony, who is their legislator, finds them troublesome
and rebellious. On the other hand, the conflux of several populations
might be more disposed to listen to new laws; but then, to make them
combine and pull together, as they say of horses, is a most difficult
task, and the work of years. And yet there is nothing which tends more
to the improvement of mankind than legislation and colonization.
Cle. No doubt; but I should like to know why you say so.
Ath. My good friend, I am afraid that the course of my speculations is
leading me to say something depreciatory of legislators; but if the word
be to the purpose, there can be no harm. And yet, why am I disquieted,
for I believe that the same principle applies equally to all human
things?
Cle. To what are you referring?
Ath. I was going to say that man never legislates, but accidents of all
sorts, which legislate for us in all sorts of ways. The violence of war
and the hard necessity of poverty are constantly overturning governments
and changing laws. And the power of discase has often caused innovations
in the state, when there have been pestilences, or when there has been a
succession of bad seasons continuing during many years. Any one who sees
all this, naturally rushes to the conclusion of which I was speaking,
that no mortal legislates in anything, but that in human affairs chance
is almost everything. And this may be said of the arts of the sailor,
and the pilot, and the physician, and the general, and may seem to be
well said; and yet there is another thing which may be said with equal
truth of all of them.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. That God governs all things, and that chance and opportunity
cooperate with him in the government of human affairs. There is,
however, a third and less extreme view, that art should be there also;
for I should say that in a storm there must surely be a great advantage
in having the aid of the pilot’s art. You would agree?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And does not a like principle apply to legislation as well as to
other things: even supposing all the conditions to be favourable which
are needed for the happiness of the state, yet the true legislator must
from time to time appear on the scene?
Cle. Most true.
Ath. In each case the artist would be able to pray rightly for certain
conditions, and if these were granted by fortune, he would then only
require to exercise his art?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And all the other artists just now mentioned, if they were bidden
to offer up each their special prayer, would do so?
Cle. Of course.
Ath. And the legislator would do likewise?
Cle. I believe that he would.
Ath. “Come, legislator,” we will say to him; “what are the conditions
which you require in a state before you can organize it?” How ought he
to answer this question? Shall I give his answer?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. He will say — “Give me a state which is governed by a tyrant, and
let the tyrant be young and have a good memory; let him be quick at
learning, and of a courageous and noble nature; let him have that
quality which, as I said before, is the inseparable companion of all the
other parts of virtue, if there is to be any good in them.”
Cle. I suppose, Megillus, that this companion virtue of which the
Stranger speaks, must be temperance?
Ath. Yes, Cleinias, temperance in the vulgar sense; not that which in
the forced and exaggerated language of some philosophers is called
prudence, but that which is the natural gift of children and animals, of
whom some live continently and others incontinently, but when isolated,
was as we said, hardly worth reckoning in the catalogue of goods. I
think that you must understand my meaning.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then our tyrant must have this as well as the other qualities, if
the state is to acquire in the best manner and in the shortest time the
form of government which is most conducive to happiness; for there
neither is nor ever will be a better or speedier way of establishing a
polity than by a tyranny.
Cle. By what possible arguments, Stranger, can any man persuade himself
of such a monstrous doctrine?
Ath. There is surely no difficulty in seeing, Cleinias, what is in
accordance with the order of nature?
Cle. You would assume, as you say, a tyrant who was young, temperate,
quick at learning, having a good memory, courageous, of a noble nature?
Ath. Yes; and you must add fortunate; and his good fortune must be that
he is the contemporary of a great legislator, and that some happy chance
brings them together. When this has been accomplished, God has done all
that he ever does for a state which he desires to be eminently
prosperous; He has done second best for a state in which there are two
such rulers, and third best for a state in which there are three. The
difficulty increases with the increase, and diminishes with the
diminution of the number.
Cle. You mean to say, I suppose, that the best government is produced
from a tyranny, and originates in a good lawgiver and an orderly tyrant,
and that the change from such a tyranny into a perfect form of
government takes place most easily; less easily when from an oligarchy;
and, in the third degree, from a democracy: is not that your meaning?
Ath. Not so; I mean rather to say that the change is best made out of a
tyranny; and secondly, out of a monarchy; and thirdly, out of some sort
of democracy: fourth, in the capacity for improvement, comes oligarchy,
which has the greatest difficulty in admitting of such a change, because
the government is in the hands of a number of potentates. I am supposing
that the legislator is by nature of the true sort, and that his strength
is united with that of the chief men of the state; and when the ruling
element is numerically small, and at the same time very strong, as in a
tyranny, there the change is likely to be easiest and most rapid.
Cle. How? I do not understand.
Ath. And yet I have repeated what I am saying a good many times; but I
suppose that you have never seen a city which is under a tyranny?
Cle. No, and I cannot say that I have any great desire to see one.
Ath. And yet, where there is a tyranny, you might certainly see that of
which I am now speaking.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. I mean that you might see how, without trouble and in no very long
period of time, the tyrant, if he wishes, can change the manners of a
state: he has only to go in the direction of virtue or of vice,
whichever he prefers, he himself indicating by his example the lines of
conduct, praising and rewarding some actions and reproving others, and
degrading those who disobey.
Cle. But how can we imagine that the citizens in general will at once
follow the example set to them; and how can he have this power both of
persuading and of compelling them?
Ath. Let no one, my friends, persuade us that there is any quicker and
easier way in which states change their laws than when the rulers lead:
such changes never have, nor ever will, come to pass in any other way.
The real impossibility or difficulty is of another sort, and is rarely
surmounted in the course of ages; but when once it is surmounted, ten
thousand or rather all blessings follow.
Cle. Of what are you speaking?
Ath. The difficulty is to find the divine love of temperate and just
institutions existing in any powerful forms of government, whether in a
monarchy or oligarchy of wealth or of birth. You might as well hope to
reproduce the character of Nestor, who is said to have excelled all men
in the power of speech, and yet more in his temperance. This, however,
according to the tradition, was in the times of Troy; in our own days
there is nothing of the sort; but if such an one either has or ever
shall come into being, or is now among us, blessed is he and blessed are
they who hear the wise words that flow from his lips. And this may be
said of power in general: When the supreme power in man coincides with
the greatest wisdom and temperance, then the best laws and the best
constitution come into being; but in no other way. And let what I have
been saying be regarded as a kind of sacred legend or oracle, and let
this be our proof that, in one point of view, there may be a difficulty
for a city to have good laws, but that there is another point of view in
which nothing can be easier or sooner effected, granting our
supposition.
Cle. How do you mean?
Ath. Let us try to amuse ourselves, old boys as we are, by moulding in
words the laws which are suitable to your state.
Cle. Let us proceed without delay.
Ath. Then let us invoke God at the settlement of our state; may he hear
and be propitious to us, and come and set in order the State and the
laws!
Cle. May he come!
Ath. But what form of polity are we going to give the city?
Cle. Tell us what you mean a little more clearly. Do you mean some form
of democracy, or oligarchy, or aristocracy, or monarchy? For we cannot
suppose that you would include tyranny.
Ath. Which of you will first tell me to which of these classes his own
government is to be referred? Megillus Ought I to answer first, since I
am the elder?
Cle. Perhaps you should.
Meg. And yet, Stranger, I perceive that I cannot say, without more
thought, what I should call the government of Lacedaemon, for it seems
to me to be like a tyranny — the power of our Ephors is marvellously
tyrannical; and sometimes it appears to me to be of all cities the most
democratical; and who can reasonably deny that it is an aristocracy? We
have also a monarchy which is held for life, and is said by all mankind,
and not by ourselves only, to be the most ancient of all monarchies;
and, therefore, when asked on a sudden, I cannot precisely say which
form of government the Spartan is.
Cle. I am in the same difficulty, Megillus; for I do not feel confident
that the polity of Cnosus is any of these.
Ath. The reason is, my excellent friends, that you really have polities,
but the states of which we were just now speaking are merely
aggregations of men dwelling in cities who are the subjects and servants
of a part of their own state, and each of them is named after the
dominant power; they are not polities at all. But if states are to be
named after their rulers, the true state ought to be called by the name
of the God who rules over wise men.
Cle. And who is this God?
Ath. May I still make use of fable to some extent, in the hope that I
may be better able to answer your question: shall I?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. In the primeval world, and a long while before the cities came into
being whose settlements we have described, there is said to have been in
the time of Cronos a blessed rule and life, of which the best-ordered of
existing states is a copy.
Cle. It will be very necessary to hear about that.
Ath. I quite agree with you; and therefore I have introduced the
subject.
Cle. Most appropriately; and since the tale is to the point, you will do
well in giving us the whole story.
Ath. I will do as you suggest. There is a tradition of the happy life of
mankind in days when all things were spontaneous and abundant. And of
this the reason is said to have been as follows: Cronos knew what we
ourselves were declaring, that no human nature invested with supreme
power is able to order human affairs and not overflow with insolence and
wrong. Which reflection led him to appoint not men but demigods, who are
of a higher and more divine race, to be the kings and rulers of our
cities; he did as we do with flocks of sheep and other tame animals. For
we do not appoint oxen to be the lords of oxen, or goats of goats; but
we ourselves are a superior race, and rule over them. In like manner
God, in his love of mankind, placed over us the demons, who are a
superior race, and they with great case and pleasure to themselves, and
no less to us, taking care us and giving us peace and reverence and
order and justice never failing, made the tribes of men happy and
united. And this tradition, which is true, declares that cities of which
some mortal man and not God is the ruler, have no escape from evils and
toils. Still we must do all that we can to imitate the life which is
said to have existed in the days of Cronos, and, as far as the principle
of immortality dwells in us, to that we must hearken, both in private
and public life, and regulate our cities and houses according to law,
meaning by the very term “law,” the distribution of mind. But if either
a single person or an oligarchy or a democracy has a soul eager after
pleasures and desires — wanting to be filled with them, yet retaining
none of them, and perpetually afflicted with an endless and insatiable
disorder; and this evil spirit, having first trampled the laws under
foot, becomes the master either of a state or of an individual — then,
as I was saying, salvation is hopeless. And now, Cleinias, we have to
consider whether you will or will not accept this tale of mine.
Cle. Certainly we will.
Ath. You are aware — are you not? — that there are of said to be as many
forms of laws as there are of governments, and of the latter we have
already mentioned all those which are commonly recognized.
Now you must regard this as a matter of first-rate importance. For what
is to be the standard of just and unjust, is once more the point at
issue. Men say that the law ought not to regard either military virtue,
or virtue in general, but only the interests and power and preservation
of the established form of government; this is thought by them to be the
best way of expressing the natural definition of justice.
Cle. How?
Ath. Justice is said by them to be the interest of the stronger.
Cle. Speak plainer.
Ath. I will: “Surely,” they say, “the governing power makes whatever
laws have authority in any state?”
Cle. True.
Ath. “Well,” they would add, “and do you suppose that tyranny or
democracy, or any other conquering power, does not make the continuance
of the power which is possessed by them the first or principal object of
their laws?”
Cle. How can they have any other?
Ath. “And whoever transgresses these laws is punished as an evil-doer by
the legislator, who calls the laws just?”
Cle. Naturally.
Ath. “This, then, is always the mode and fashion in which justice
exists.”
Cle. Certainly, if they are correct in their view.
Ath. Why, yes, this is one of those false principles of government to
which we were referring.
Cle. Which do you mean?
Ath. Those which we were examining when we spoke of who ought to govern
whom. Did we not arrive at the conclusion that parents ought to govern
their children, and the elder the younger, and the noble the ignoble?
And there were many other principles, if you remember, and they were not
always consistent. One principle was this very principle of might, and
we said that Pindar considered violence natural and justified it.
Cle. Yes; I remember.
Ath. Consider, then, to whom our state is to be entrusted. For there is
a thing which has occurred times without number in states.
Cle. What thing?
Ath. That when there has been a contest for power, those who gain the
upper hand so entirely monopolize the government, as to refuse all share
to the defeated party and their descendants — they live watching one
another, the ruling class being in perpetual fear that some one who has
a recollection of former wrongs will come into power and rise up against
them. Now, according to our view, such governments are not polities at
all, nor are laws right which are passed for the good of particular
classes and not for the good of the whole state. States which have such
laws are not polities but parties, and their notions of justice are
simply unmeaning. I say this, because I am going to assert that we must
not entrust the government in your state to any one because he is rich,
or because he possesses any other advantage, such as strength, or
stature, or again birth: but he who is most obedient to the laws of the
state, he shall win the palm; and to him who is victorious in the first
degree shall be given the highest office and chief ministry of the gods;
and the second to him who bears the second palm; and on a similar
principle shall all the other be assigned to those who come next in
order.
And when I call the rulers servants or ministers of the law, I give them
this name not for the sake of novelty, but because I certainly believe
that upon such service or ministry depends the well- or ill-being of the
state. For that state in which the law is subject and has no authority,
I perceive to be on the highway to ruin; but I see that the state in
which the law is above the rulers, and the rulers are the inferiors of
the law, has salvation, and every blessing which the Gods can confer.
Cle. Truly, Stranger, you see with the keen vision of age.
Ath. Why, yes; every man when he is young has that sort of vision
dullest, and when he is old keenest.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And now, what is to be the next step? May we not suppose the
colonists to have arrived, and proceed to make our speech to them?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. “Friends,” we say to them, — “God, as the old tradition declares,
holding in his hand the beginning, middle, and end of all that is,
travels according to his nature in a straight line towards the
accomplishment of his end. Justice always accompanies him, and is the
punisher of those who fall short of the divine law. To justice, he who
would be happy holds fast, and follows in her company with all humility
and order; but he who is lifted up with pride, or elated by wealth or
rank, or beauty, who is young and foolish, and has a soul hot with
insolence, and thinks that he has no need of any guide or ruler, but is
able himself to be the guide of others, he, I say, is left deserted of
God; and being thus deserted, he takes to him others who are like
himself, and dances about, throwing all things into confusion, and many
think that he is a great man, but in a short time he pays a penalty
which justice cannot but approve, and is utterly destroyed, and his
family and city with him. Wherefore, seeing that human things are thus
ordered, what should a wise man do or think, or not do or think?
Cle. Every man ought to make up his mind that he will be one of the
followers of God; there can be no doubt of that.
Ath. Then what life is agreeable to God, and becoming in his followers?
One only, expressed once for all in the old saying that “like agrees
with like, with measure measure,” but things which have no measure agree
neither with themselves nor with the things which have. Now God ought to
be to us the measure of all things, and not man, as men commonly say
(Protagoras): the words are far more true of him. And he who would be
dear to God must, as far as is possible, be like him and such as he is.
Wherefore the temperate man is the friend of God, for he is like him;
and the intemperate man is unlike him, and different from him, and
unjust. And the same applies to other things; and this is the
conclusion, which is also the noblest and truest of all sayings — that
for the good man to offer sacrifice to the Gods, and hold converse with
them by means of prayers and offerings and every kind of service, is the
noblest and best of all things, and also the most conducive to a happy
life, and very fit and meet. But with the bad man, the opposite of this
is true: for the bad man has an impure soul, whereas the good is pure;
and from one who is polluted, neither good man nor God can without
impropriety receive gifts. Wherefore the unholy do only waste their much
service upon the Gods, but when offered by any holy man, such service is
most acceptable to them. This is the mark at which we ought to aim. But
what weapons shall we use, and how shall we direct them? In the first
place, we affirm that next after the Olympian Gods and the Gods of the
State, honour should be given to the Gods below; they should receive
everything in even and of the second choice, and ill omen, while the odd
numbers, and the first choice, and the things of lucky omen, are given
to the Gods above, by him who would rightly hit the mark of piety.
Next to these Gods, a wise man will do service to the demons or spirits,
and then to the heroes, and after them will follow the private and
ancestral Gods, who are worshipped as the law prescribes in the places
which are sacred to them. Next comes the honour of living parents, to
whom, as is meet, we have to pay the first and greatest and oldest of
all debts, considering that all which a man has belongs to those who
gave him birth and brought him up, and that he must do all that he can
to minister to them, first, in his property, secondly, in his person,
and thirdly, in his soul, in return for the endless care and travail
which they bestowed upon him of old, in the days of his infancy, and
which he is now to pay back to them when they are old and in the
extremity of their need. And all his life long he ought never to utter,
or to have uttered, an unbecoming word to them; for of light and
fleeting words the penalty is most severe; Nemesis, the messenger of
justice, is appointed to watch over all such matters. When they are
angry and want to satisfy their feelings in word or deed, he should give
way to them; for a father who thinks that he has been wronged by his son
may be reasonably expected to be very angry. At their death, the most
moderate funeral is best, neither exceeding the customary expense, nor
yet falling short of the honour which has been usually shown by the
former generation to their parents. And let a man not forget to pay the
yearly tribute of respect to the dead, honouring them chiefly by
omitting nothing that conduces to a perpetual remembrance of them, and
giving a reasonable portion of his fortune to the dead. Doing this, and
living after this manner, we shall receive our reward from the Gods and
those who are above us [i.e., the demons]; and we shall spend our days
for the most part in good hope. And how a man ought to order what
relates to his descendants and his kindred and friends and
fellow-citizens, and the rites of hospitality taught by Heaven, and the
intercourse which arises out of all these duties, with a view to the
embellishment and orderly regulation of his own life — these things, I
say, the laws, as we proceed with them, will accomplish, partly
persuading, and partly when natures do not yield to the persuasion of
custom, chastising them by might and right, and will thus render our
state, if the Gods co-operate with us, prosperous and happy. But of what
has to be said, and must be said by the legislator who is of my way of
thinking, and yet, if said in the form of law, would be out of place —
of this I think that he may give a sample for the instruction of himself
and of those for whom he is legislating; and then when, as far as he is
able, he has gone through all the preliminaries, he may proceed to the
work of legislation. Now, what will be the form of such prefaces? There
may be a difficulty in including or describing them all under a single
form, but I think that we may get some notion of them if we can
guarantee one thing.
Cle. What is that?
Ath. I should wish the citizens to be as readily persuaded to virtue as
possible; this will surely be the aim of the legislator in all his laws.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. The proposal appears to me to be of some value; and I think that a
person will listen with more gentleness and good-will to the precepts
addressed to him by the legislator, when his soul is not altogether
unprepared to receive them. Even a little done in the way of
conciliation gains his ear, and is always worth having. For there is no
great inclination or readiness on the part of mankind to be made as
good, or as quickly good, as possible. The case of the many proves the
wisdom of Hesiod, who says that the road to wickedness is smooth and can
be travelled without perspiring, because it is so very short: But before
virtue the immortal Gods have placed the sweat of labour, and long and
steep is the way thither, and rugged at first; but when you have reached
the top, although difficult before, it is then easy.
Cle. Yes; and he certainly speaks well.
Ath. Very true: and now let me tell you the effect which the preceding
discourse has had upon me.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. Suppose that we have a little conversation with the legislator, and
say to him — “O, legislator, speak; if you know what we ought to say and
do, you can surely tell.”
Cle. Of course he can.
Ath. “Did we not hear you just now saying, that the legislator ought not
to allow the poets to do what they liked? For that they would not know
in which of their words they went against the laws, to the hurt of the
state.”
Cle. That is true.
Ath. May we not fairly make answer to him on behalf of the poets?
Cle. What answer shall we make to him?
Ath. That the poet, according to the tradition which has ever prevailed
among us, and is accepted of all men, when he sits down on the tripod of
the muse, is not in his right mind; like a fountain, he allows to flow
out freely whatever comes in, and his art being imitative, he is often
compelled to represent men of opposite dispositions, and thus to
contradict himself; neither can he tell whether there is more truth in
one thing that he has said than in another. this is not the case in a
law; the legislator must give not two rules about the same thing, but
one only. Take an example from what you have just been saying. Of three
kinds of funerals, there is one which is too extravagant, another is too
niggardly, the third is a mean; and you choose and approve and order the
last without qualification.
But if I had an extremely rich wife, and she bade me bury her and
describe her burial in a poem, I should praise the extravagant sort; and
a poor miserly man, who had not much money to spend, would approve of
the niggardly; and the man of moderate means, who was himself moderate,
would praise a moderate funeral. Now you in the capacity of legislator
must not barely say “a moderate funeral,” but you must define what
moderation is, and how much; unless you are definite, you must not
suppose that you are speaking a language that can become law.
Cle. Certainly not.
Ath. And is our legislator to have no preface to his laws, but to say at
once Do this, avoid that — and then holding the penalty in terrorem to
go on to another law; offering never a word of advice or exhortation to
those for whom he is legislating, after the manner of some doctors? For
of doctors, as I may remind you, some have a gentler, others a ruder
method of cure; and as children ask the doctor to be gentle with them,
so we will ask the legislator to cure our disorders with the gentlest
remedies. What I mean to say is, that besides doctors there are doctors’
servants, who are also styled doctors.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And whether they are slaves or freemen makes no difference; they
acquire their knowledge of medicine by obeying and observing their
masters; empirically and not according to the natural way of learning,
as the manner of freemen is, who have learned scientifically themselves
the art which they impart scientifically to their pupils. You are aware
that there are these two classes of doctors?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. And did you ever observe that there are two classes of patients in
states, slaves and freemen; and the slave doctors run about and cure the
slaves, or wait for them in the dispensaries — practitioners of this
sort never talk to their patients individually, or let them talk about
their own individual complaints? The slave doctor prescribes what mere
experience suggests, as if he had exact knowledge; and when he has given
his orders, like a tyrant, he rushes off with equal assurance to some
other servant who is ill; and so he relieves the master of the house of
the care of his invalid slaves. But the other doctor, who is a freeman,
attends and practises upon freemen; and he carries his enquiries far
back, and goes into the nature of the disorder; he enters into discourse
with the patient and with his friends, and is at once getting
information from the sick man, and also instructing him as far as he is
able, and he will not prescribe for him until he has first convinced
him; at last, when he has brought the patient more and more under his
persuasive influences and set him on the road to health, he attempts to
effect a cure. Now which is the better way of proceeding in a physician
and in a trainer? Is he the better who accomplishes his ends in a double
way, or he who works in one way, and that the ruder and inferior?
Cle. I should say, Stranger, that the double way is far better.
Ath. Should you like to see an example of the double and single method
in legislation?
Cle. Certainly I should.
Ath. What will be our first law? Will not the legislature, observing the
order of nature, begin by making regulations for states about births?
Cle. He will.
Ath. In all states the birth of children goes back to the connection of
marriage?
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And, according to the true order, the laws relating to marriage
should be those which are first determined in every state?
Cle. Quite so.
Ath. Then let me first give the law of marriage in a simple form; it may
run as follows: A man shall marry between the ages of thirty and
thirty-five, or, if he does not, he shall pay such and such a fine, or
shall suffer the loss of such and such privileges. This would be the
simple law about marriage. The double law would run thus: A man shall
marry between the ages of thirty and thirty-five, considering that in a
manner the human race naturally partakes of immortality, which every man
is by nature inclined to desire to the utmost; for the desire of every
man that he may become famous, and not lie in the grave without a name,
is only the love of continuance. Now mankind are coeval with all time,
and are ever following, and will ever follow, the course of time; and so
they are immortal, because they leave children’s children behind them,
and partake of immortality in the unity of generation. And for a man
voluntarily to deprive himself of this gift, as he deliberately does who
will not have a wife or children, is impiety. He who obeys the law shall
be free, and shall pay no fine; but he who is disobedient, and does not
marry, when he has arrived at the age of thirty-five, shall pay a yearly
fine of a certain amount, in order that he may not imagine his celibacy
to bring ease and profit to him; and he shall not share in the honours
which the young men in the state give to the aged. Comparing now the two
forms of the law, you will be able to arrive at a judgment about any
other laws — whether they should be double in length even when shortest,
because they have to persuade as well as threaten, or whether they shall
only threaten and be of half the length.
Meg. The shorter form, Stranger, would be more in accordance with
Lacedaemonian custom; although, for my own part, if any one were to ask
me which I myself prefer in the state, I should certainly determine in
favour of the longer; and I would have every law made after the same
pattern, if I had to choose. But I think that Cleinias is the person to
be consulted, for his is the state which is going to use these laws.
Cle. Thank you, Megillus.
Ath. Whether, in the abstract, words are to be many or few, is a very
foolish question; the best form, and not the shortest, is to be
approved; nor is length at all to be regarded. Of the two forms of law
which have been recited, the one is not only twice as good in practical
usefulness as the other, but the case is like that of the two kinds of
doctors, which I was just now mentioning. And yet legislators never
appear to have considered that they have two instruments which they
might use in legislation — persuasion and force; for in dealing with the
rude and uneducated multitude, they use the one only as far as they can;
they do not mingle persuasion with coercion, but employ force pure and
simple. Moreover, there is a third point, sweet friends, which ought to
be, and never is, regarded in our existing laws.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. A point arising out of our previous discussion, which comes into my
mind in some mysterious way. All this time, from early dawn until noon,
have we been talking about laws in this charming retreat: now we are
going to promulgate our laws, and what has preceded was only the prelude
of them. Why do I mention this? For this reason: Because all discourses
and vocal exercises have preludes and overtures, which are a sort of
artistic beginnings intended to help the strain which is to be
performed; lyric measures and music of every other kind have preludes
framed with wonderful care. But of the truer and higher strain of law
and politics, no one has ever yet uttered any prelude, or composed or
published any, as though there was no such thing in nature. Whereas our
present discussion seems to me to imply that there is; — these double
laws, of which we were speaking, are not exactly double, but they are in
two parts, the law and the prelude of the law. The arbitrary command,
which was compared to the commands of doctors, whom we described as of
the meaner sort, was the law pure and simple; and that which preceded,
and was described by our friend here as being hortatory only, was,
although in fact, an exhortation, likewise analogous to the preamble of
a discourse. For I imagine that all this language of conciliation, which
the legislator has been uttering in the preface of the law, was intended
to create goodwill in the person whom he addressed, in order that, by
reason of this good-will, he might more intelligently receive his
command, that is to say, the law.
And therefore, in my way of speaking, this is more rightly described as
the preamble than as the matter of the law. And I must further proceed
to observe, that to all his laws, and to each separately, the legislator
should prefix a preamble; he should remember how great will be the
difference between them, according as they have, or have not, such
preambles, as in the case already given.
Cle. The lawgiver, if he asks my opinion, will certainly legislate in
the form which you advise.
Ath. I think that you are right, Cleinias, in affirming that all laws
have preambles, and that throughout the whole of this work of
legislation every single law should have a suitable preamble at the
beginning; for that which is to follow is most important, and it makes
all the difference whether we clearly remember the preambles or not.
Yet we should be wrong in requiring that all laws, small and great
alike, should have preambles of the same kind, any more than all songs
or speeches; although they may be natural to all, they are not always
necessary, and whether they are to be employed or not has in each case
to be left to the judgment of the speaker or the musician, or, in the
present instance, of the lawgiver.
Cle. That I think is most true. And now, Stranger, without delay let us
return to the argument, and, as people say in play, make a second and
better beginning, if you please, with the principles which we have been
laying down, which we never thought of regarding as a preamble before,
but of which we may now make a preamble, and not merely consider them to
be chance topics of discourse. Let us acknowledge, then, that we have a
preamble. About the honour of the Gods and the respect of parents,
enough has been already said; and we may proceed to the topics which
follow next in order, until the preamble is deemed by you to be
complete; and after that you shall go through the laws themselves.
Ath. I understand you to mean that we have made a sufficient preamble
about Gods and demi-gods, and about parents living or dead; and now you
would have us bring the rest of the subject into the light of day?
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. After this, as is meet and for the interest of us all, I the
speaker, and you the listeners, will try to estimate all that relates to
the souls and bodies and properties of the citizens, as regards both
their occupations and arrive, as far as in us lies, at the nature of
education. These then are the topics which follow next in order.
Cle. Very good.
BOOK V
Athenian Stranger. Listen, all ye who have just now heard the laws about
Gods, and about our dear forefathers: Of all the things which a man has,
next to the Gods, his soul is the most divine and most truly his own.
Now in every man there are two parts: the better and superior, which
rules, and the worse and inferior, which serves; and the ruling part of
him is always to be preferred to the subject. Wherefore I am right in
bidding every one next to the Gods, who are our masters, and those who
in order follow them [i.e., the demons], to honour his own soul, which
every one seems to honour, but no one honours as he ought; for honour is
a divine good, and no evil thing is honourable; and he who thinks that
he can honour the soul by word or gift, or any sort of compliance,
without making her in any way better, seems to honour her, but honours
her not at all. For example, every man, from his very boyhood, fancies
that he is able to know everything, and thinks that he honours his soul
by praising her, and he is very ready to let her do whatever she may
like. But I mean to say that in acting thus he injures his soul, and is
far from honouring her; whereas, in our opinion, he ought to honour her
as second only to the Gods. Again, when a man thinks that others are to
be blamed, and not himself, for the errors which he has committed from
time to time, and the many and great evils which befell him in
consequence, and is always fancying himself to be exempt and innocent,
he is under the idea that he is honouring his soul; whereas the very
reverse is the fact, for he is really injuring her. And when,
disregarding the word and approval of the legislator, he indulges in
pleasure, then again he is far from honouring her; he only dishonours
her, and fills her full of evil and remorse; or when he does not endure
to the end the labours and fears and sorrows and pains which the
legislator approves, but gives way before them, then, by yielding, he
does not honour the soul, but by all such conduct he makes her to be
dishonourable; nor when he thinks that life at any price is a good, does
he honour her, but yet once more he dishonours her; for the soul having
a notion that the world below is all evil, he yields to her, and does
not resist and teach or convince her that, for aught she knows, the
world of the Gods below, instead of being evil, may be the greatest of
all goods.
Again, when any one prefers beauty to virtue, what is this but the real
and utter dishonour of the soul? For such a preference implies that the
body is more honourable than the soul; and this is false, for there is
nothing of earthly birth which is more honourable than the heavenly, and
he who thinks otherwise of the soul has no idea how greatly he
undervalues this wonderful possession; nor, again, when a person is
willing, or not unwilling, to acquire dishonest gains, does he then
honour his soul with gifts — far otherwise; he sells her glory and
honour for a small piece of gold; but all the gold which is under or
upon the earth is not enough to give in exchange for virtue. In a word,
I may say that he who does not estimate the base and evil, the good and
noble, according to the standard of the legislator, and abstain in every
possible way from the one and practise the other to the utmost of his
power, does not know that in all these respects he is most foully and
disgracefully abusing his soul, which is the divinest part of man; for
no one, as I may say, ever considers that which is declared to be the
greatest penalty of evil-doing — namely, to grow into the likeness of
bad men, and growing like them to fly from the conversation of the good,
and be cut off from them, and cleave to and follow after the company of
the bad. And he who is joined to them must do and suffer what such men
by nature do and say to one another — a suffering which is not justice
but retribution; for justice and the just are noble, whereas retribution
is the suffering which waits upon injustice; and whether a man escape or
endure this, he is miserable — in the former case, because he is not
cured; while in the latter, he perishes in order that the rest of
mankind may be saved.
Speaking generally, our glory is to follow the better and improve the
inferior, which is susceptible of improvement, as far as this is
possible. And of all human possessions, the soul is by nature most
inclined to avoid the evil, and track out and find the chief good; which
when a man has found, he should take up his abode with it during the
remainder of his life. Wherefore the soul also is second [or next to
God] in honour; and third, as every one will perceive, comes the honour
of the body in natural order. Having determined this, we have next to
consider that there is a natural honour of the body, and that of honours
some are true and some are counterfeit.
To decide which are which is the business of the legislator; and he, I
suspect, would intimate that they are as follows: Honour is not to be
given to the fair body, or to the strong or the swift or the tall, or to
the healthy body (although many may think otherwise), any more than to
their opposites; but the mean states of all these habits are by far the
safest and most moderate; for the one extreme makes the soul braggart
and insolent, and the other, illiberal and base; and money, and
property, and distinction all go to the same tune. The excess of any of
these things is apt to be a source of hatreds and divisions among states
and individuals; and the defect of them is commonly a cause of slavery.
And, therefore, I would not have any one fond of heaping up riches for
the sake of his children, in order that he may leave them as rich as
possible.
For the possession of great wealth is of no use, either to them or to
the state. The condition of youth which is free from flattery, and at
the same time not in need of the necessaries of life, is the best and
most harmonious of all, being in accord and agreement with our nature,
and making life to be most entirely free from sorrow. Let parents, then,
bequeath to their children not a heap of riches, but the spirit of
reverence. We, indeed, fancy that they will inherit reverence from us,
if we rebuke them when they show a want of reverence. But this quality
is not really imparted to them by the present style of admonition, which
only tells them that the young ought always to be reverential.
A sensible legislator will rather exhort the elders to reverence the
younger, and above all to take heed that no young man sees or hears one
of themselves doing or saying anything disgraceful; for where old men
have no shame, there young men will most certainly be devoid of
reverence. The best way of training the young is to train yourself at
the same time; not to admonish them, but to be always carrying out your
own admonitions in practice. He who honours his kindred, and reveres
those who share in the same Gods and are of the same blood and family,
may fairly expect that the Gods who preside over generation will be
propitious to him, and will quicken his seed. And he who deems the
services which his friends and acquaintances do for him, greater and
more important than they themselves deem them, and his own favours to
them less than theirs to him, will have their good-will in the
intercourse of life. And surely in his relations to the state and his
fellow citizens, he is by far the best, who rather than the Olympic or
any other victory of peace or war, desires to win the palm of obedience
to the laws of his country, and who, of all mankind, is the person
reputed to have obeyed them best through life. In his relations to
strangers, a man should consider that a contract is a most holy thing,
and that all concerns and wrongs of strangers are more directly
dependent on the protection of God, than wrongs done to citizens; for
the stranger, having no kindred and friends, is more to be pitied by
Gods and men. Wherefore, also, he who is most able to avenge him is most
zealous in his cause; and he who is most able is the genius and the god
of the stranger, who follow in the train of Zeus, the god of strangers.
And for this reason, he who has a spark of caution in him, will do his
best to pass through life without sinning against the stranger. And of
offences committed, whether against strangers or fellow-countrymen, that
against suppliants is the greatest. For the god who witnessed to the
agreement made with the suppliant, becomes in a special manner the
guardian of the sufferer; and he will certainly not suffer unavenged.
Thus we have fairly described the manner in which a man is to act about
his parents, and himself, and his own affairs; and in relation to the
state, and his friends, and kindred, both in what concerns his own
countrymen, and in what concerns the stranger. We will now consider what
manner of man he must be who would best pass through life in respect of
those other things which are not matters of law, but of praise and blame
only; in which praise and blame educate a man, and make him more
tractable and amenable to the laws which are about to be imposed.
Truth is the beginning of every good thing, both to Gods and men; and he
who would be blessed and happy, should be from the first a partaker of
the truth, that he may live a true man as long as possible, for then he
can be trusted; but he is not to be trusted who loves voluntary
falsehood, and he who loves involuntary falsehood is a fool. Neither
condition is enviable, for the untrustworthy and ignorant has no friend,
and as time advances he becomes known, and lays up in store for himself
isolation in crabbed age when life is on the wane: so that, whether his
children or friends are alive or not, he is equally solitary. — Worthy
of honour is he who does no injustice, and of more than twofold honour,
if he not only does no injustice himself, but hinders others from doing
any; the first may count as one man, the second is worth many men,
because he informs the rulers of the injustice of others. And yet more
highly to be esteemed is he who co-operates with the rulers in
correcting the citizens as far as he can — he shall be proclaimed the
great and perfect citizen, and bear away the palm of virtue. The same
praise may be given about temperance and wisdom, and all other goods
which may be imparted to others, as well as acquired by a man for
himself; he who imparts them shall be honoured as the man of men, and he
who is willing, yet is not able, may be allowed the second place; but he
who is jealous and will not, if he can help, allow others to partake in
a friendly way of any good, is deserving of blame: the good, however,
which he has, is not to be undervalued by us because it is possessed by
him, but must be acquired by us also to the utmost of our power. Let
every man, then, freely strive for the prize of virtue, and let there be
no envy. For the unenvious nature increases the greatness of states — he
himself contends in the race, blasting the fair fame of no man; but the
envious, who thinks that he ought to get the better by defaming others,
is less energetic himself in the pursuit of true virtue, and reduces his
rivals to despair by his unjust slanders of them. And so he makes the
whole city to enter the arena untrained in the practice of virtue, and
diminishes her glory as far as in him lies. Now every man should be
valiant, but he should also be gentle. From the cruel, or hardly
curable, or altogether incurable acts of injustice done to him by
others, a man can only escape by fighting and defending himself and
conquering, and by never ceasing to punish them; and no man who is not
of a noble spirit is able to accomplish this. As to the actions of those
who do evil, but whose evil is curable, in the first place, let us
remember that the unjust man is not unjust of his own free will.
For no man of his own free will would choose to possess the greatest of
evils, and least of all in the most honourable part of himself.
And the soul, as we said, is of a truth deemed by all men the most
honourable. In the soul, then, which is the most honourable part of him,
no one, if he could help, would admit, or allow to continue the greatest
of evils. The unrighteous and vicious are always to be pitied in any
case; and one can afford to forgive as well as pity him who is curable,
and refrain and calm one’s anger, not getting into a passion, like a
woman, and nursing ill-feeling. But upon him who is incapable of
reformation and wholly evil, the vials of our wrath should be poured
out; wherefore I say that good men ought, when occasion demands, to be
both gentle and passionate.
Of all evils the greatest is one which in the souls of most men is
innate, and which a man is always excusing in himself and never
correcting; mean, what is expressed in the saying that “Every man by
nature is and ought to be his own friend.” Whereas the excessive love of
self is in reality the source to each man of all offences; for the lover
is blinded about the beloved, so that he judges wrongly of the just, the
good, and the honourable, and thinks that he ought always to prefer
himself to the truth. But he who would be a great man ought to regard,
not himself or his interests, but what is just, whether the just act be
his own or that of another. Through a similar error men are induced to
fancy that their own ignorance is wisdom, and thus we who may be truly
said to know nothing, think that we know all things; and because we will
not let others act for us in what we do not know, we are compelled to
act amiss ourselves. Wherefore let every man avoid excess of self-love,
and condescend to follow a better man than himself, not allowing any
false shame to stand in the way. There are also minor precepts which are
often repeated, and are quite as useful; a man should recollect them and
remind himself of them. For when a stream is flowing out, there should
be water flowing in too; and recollection flows in while wisdom is
departing. Therefore I say that a man should refrain from excess either
of laughter or tears, and should exhort his neighbour to do the same; he
should veil his immoderate sorrow or joy, and seek to behave with
propriety, whether the genius of his good fortune remains with him, or
whether at the crisis of his fate, when he seems to be mounting high and
steep places, the Gods oppose him in some of his enterprises. Still he
may ever hope, in the case of good men, that whatever afflictions are to
befall them in the future God will lessen, and that present evils he
will change for the better; and as to the goods which are the opposite
of these evils, he will not doubt that they will be added to them, and
that they will be fortunate. Such should be men’s hopes, and such should
be the exhortations with which they admonish one another, never losing
an opportunity, but on every occasion distinctly reminding themselves
and others of all these things, both in jest and earnest.
Enough has now been said of divine matters, both as touching the
practices which men ought to follow, and as to the sort of persons who
they ought severally to be. But of human things we have not as yet
spoken, and we must; for to men we are discoursing and not to Gods.
Pleasures and pains and desires are a part of human nature, and on them
every mortal being must of necessity hang and depend with the most eager
interest. And therefore we must praise the noblest life, not only as the
fairest in appearance, but as being one which, if a man will only taste,
and not, while still in his youth, desert for another, he will find to
surpass also in the very thing which we all of us desire — I mean in
having a greater amount of pleasure and less of pain during the whole of
life. And this will be plain, if a man has a true taste of them, as will
be quickly and clearly seen. But what is a true taste? That we have to
learn from the argument — the point being what is according to nature,
and what is not according to nature. One life must be compared with
another, the more pleasurable with the more painful, after this manner:
We desire to have pleasure, but we neither desire nor choose pain; and
the neutral state we are ready to take in exchange, not for pleasure but
for pain; and we also wish for less pain and greater pleasure, but less
pleasure and greater pain we do not wish for; and an equal balance of
either we cannot venture to assert that we should desire. And all these
differ or do not differ severally in number and magnitude and intensity
and equality, and in the opposites of these when regarded as objects of
choice, in relation to desire. And such being the necessary order of
things, we wish for that life in which there are many great and intense
elements of pleasure and pain, and in which the pleasures are in excess,
and do not wish for that in which the opposites exceed; nor, again, do
we wish for that in which the clements of either are small and few and
feeble, and the pains exceed. And when, as I said before, there is a
balance of pleasure and pain in life, this is to be regarded by us as
the balanced life; while other lives are preferred by us because they
exceed in what we like, or are rejected by us because they exceed in
what we dislike. All the lives of men may be regarded by us as bound up
in these, and we must also consider what sort of lives we by nature
desire. And if we wish for any others, I say that we desire them only
through some ignorance and inexperience of the lives which actually
exist.
Now, what lives are they, and how many in which, having searched out and
beheld the objects of will and desire and their opposites, and making of
them a law, choosing, I say, the dear and the pleasant and the best and
noblest, a man may live in the happiest way possible? Let us say that
the temperate life is one kind of life, and the rational another, and
the courageous another, and the healthful another; and to these four let
us oppose four other livesthe foolish, the cowardly, the intemperate,
the diseased. He who knows the temperate life will describe it as in all
things gentle, having gentle pains and gentle pleasures, and placid
desires and loves not insane; whereas the intemperate life is impetuous
in all things, and has violent pains and pleasures, and vehement and
stinging desires, and loves utterly insane; and in the temperate life
the pleasures exceed the pains, but in the intemperate life the pains
exceed the pleasures in greatness and number and frequency. Hence one of
the two lives is naturally and necessarily more pleasant and the other
more painful, and he who would live pleasantly cannot possibly choose to
live intemperately. And if this is true, the inference clearly is that
no man is voluntarily intemperate; but that the whole multitude of men
lack temperance in their lives, either from ignorance, or from want of
self-control, or both. And the same holds of the diseased and healthy
life; they both have pleasures and pains, but in health the pleasure
exceeds the pain, and in sickness the pain exceeds the pleasure. Now our
intention in choosing the lives is not that the painful should exceed,
but the life in which pain is exceeded by pleasure we have determined to
be the more pleasant life. And we should say that the temperate life has
the elements both of pleasure and pain fewer and smaller and less
frequent than the intemperate, and the wise life than the foolish life,
and the life of courage than the life of cowardice; one of each pair
exceeding in pleasure and the other in pain, the courageous surpassing
the cowardly, and the wise exceeding the foolish. And so the one dass of
lives exceeds the other class in pleasure; the temperate and courageous
and wise and healthy exceed the cowardly and foolish and intemperate and
diseased lives; and generally speaking, that which has any virtue,
whether of body or soul, is pleasanter than the vicious life, and far
superior in beauty and rectitude and excellence and reputation, and
causes him who lives accordingly to be infinitely happier than the
opposite.
Enough of the preamble; and now the laws should follow; or, to speak
more correctly, outline of them. As, then, in the case of a web or any
other tissue, the warp and the woof cannot be made of the same
materials, but the warp is necessarily superior as being stronger, and
having a certain character of firmness, whereas the woof is softer and
has a proper degree of elasticity; — in a similar manner those who are
to hold great offices in states, should be distinguished truly in each
case from those who have been but slenderly proven by education. Let us
suppose that there are two parts in the constitution of a state — one
the creation of offices, the other the laws which are assigned to them
to administer.
But, before all this, comes the following consideration: The shepherd or
herdsman, or breeder of horses or the like, when he has received his
animals will not begin to train them until he has first purified them in
a manner which befits a community of animals; he will divide the healthy
and unhealthy, and the good breed and the bad breed, and will send away
the unhealthy and badly bred to other herds, and tend the rest,
reflecting that his labours will be vain and have no effect, either on
the souls or bodies of those whom nature and ill nurture have corrupted,
and that they will involve in destruction the pure and healthy nature
and being of every other animal, if he should neglect to purify them.
Now the case of other animals is not so important — they are only worth
introducing for the sake of illustration; but what relates to man is of
the highest importance; and the legislator should make enquiries, and
indicate what is proper for each one in the way of purification and of
any other procedure. Take, for example, the purification of a city —
there are many kinds of purification, some easier and others more
difficult; and some of them, and the best and most difficult of them,
the legislator, if he be also a despot, may be able to effect; but the
legislator, who, not being a despot, sets up a new government and laws,
even if he attempt the mildest of purgations, may think himself happy if
he can complete his work. The best kind of purification is painful, like
similar cures in medicine, involving righteous punishment and inflicting
death or exile in the last resort.
For in this way we commonly dispose of great sinners who are incurable,
and are the greatest injury of the whole state. But the milder form of
purification is as follows: when men who have nothing, and are in want
of food, show a disposition to follow their leaders in an attack on the
property of the rich — these, who are the natural plague of the state,
are sent away by the legislator in a friendly spirit as far as he is
able; and this dismissal of them is euphemistically termed a colony. And
every legislator should contrive to do this at once. Our present case,
however, is peculiar. For there is no need to devise any colony or
purifying separation under the circumstances in which we are placed. But
as, when many streams flow together from many sources, whether springs
or mountain torrents, into a single lake, we ought to attend and take
care that the confluent waters should be perfectly clear, and in order
to effect this, should pump and draw off and divert impurities, so in
every political arrangement there may be trouble and danger. But, seeing
that we are now only discoursing and not acting, let our selection be
supposed to be completed, and the desired purity attained. Touching evil
men, who want to join and be citizens of our state, after we have tested
them by every sort of persuasion and for a sufficient time, we will
prevent them from coming; but the good we will to the utmost of our
ability receive as friends with open arms.
Another piece of good fortune must not be forgotten, which, as we were
saying, the Heraclid colony had, and which is also ours — that we have
escaped division of land and the abolition of debts; for these are
always a source of dangerous contention, and a city which is driven by
necessity to legislate upon such matters can neither allow the old ways
to continue, nor yet venture to alter them.
We must have recourse to prayers, so to speak, and hope that a slight
change may be cautiously effected in a length of time. And such a change
can be accomplished by those who have abundance of land, and having also
many debtors, are willing, in a kindly spirit, to share with those who
are in want, sometimes remitting and sometimes giving, holding fast in a
path of moderation, and deeming poverty to be the increase of a man’s
desires and not the diminution of his property. For this is the great
beginning of salvation to a state, and upon this lasting basis may be
erected afterwards whatever political order is suitable under the
circumstances; but if the change be based upon an unsound principle, the
future administration of the country will be full of difficulties. That
is a danger which, as I am saying, is escaped by us, and yet we had
better say how, if we had not escaped, we might have escaped; and we may
venture now to assert that no other way of escape, whether narrow or
broad, can be devised but freedom from avarice and a sense of justice —
upon this rock our city shall be built; for there ought to be no
disputes among citizens about property. If there are quarrels of long
standing among them, no legislator of any degree of sense will proceed a
step in the arrangement of the state until they are settled. But that
they to whom God has given, as he has to us, to be the founders of a new
state as yet free from enmity — that they should create themselves
enmities by their mode of distributing lands and houses, would be
superhuman folly and wickedness.
How then can we rightly order the distribution of the land? In the first
place, the number of the citizens has to be determined, and also the
number and size of the divisions into which they will have to be formed;
and the land and the houses will then have to be apportioned by us as
fairly as we can. The number of citizens can only be estimated
satisfactorily in relation to the territory and the neighbouring states.
The territory must be sufficient to maintain a certain number of
inhabitants in a moderate way of life — more than this is not required;
and the number of citizens should be sufficient to defend themselves
against the injustice of their neighbours, and also to give them the
power of rendering efficient aid to their neighbours when they are
wronged. After having taken a survey of theirs and their neighbours’
territory, we will determine the limits of them in fact as well as in
theory. And now, let us proceed to legislate with a view to perfecting
the form and outline of our state.
The number of our citizens shall be 5040 — this will be a convenient
number; and these shall be owners of the land and protectors of the
allotment. The houses and the land will be divided in the same way, so
that every man may correspond to a lot. Let the whole number be first
divided into two parts, and then into three; and the number is further
capable of being divided into four or five parts, or any number of parts
up to ten. Every legislator ought to know so much arithmetic as to be
able to tell what number is most likely to be useful to all cities; and
we are going to take that number which contains the greatest and most
regular and unbroken series of divisions. The whole of number has every
possible division, and the number 5040 can be divided by exactly
fifty-nine divisors, and ten of these proceed without interval from one
to ten: this will furnish numbers for war and peace, and for all
contracts and dealings, including taxes and divisions of the land. These
properties of number should be ascertained at leisure by those who are
bound by law to know them; for they are true, and should be proclaimed
at the foundation of the city, with a view to use. Whether the
legislator is establishing a new state or restoring an old and decayed
one, in respect of Gods and temples — the temples which are to be built
in each city, and the Gods or demi-gods after whom they are to be called
— if he be a man of sense, he will make no change in anything which the
oracle of Delphi, or Dodona, or the God Ammon, or any ancient tradition
has sanctioned in whatever manner, whether by apparitions or reputed
inspiration of Heaven, in obedience to which mankind have established
sacrifices in connection with mystic rites, either originating on the
spot, or derived from Tyrrhenia or Cyprus or some other place, and on
the strength of which traditions they have consecrated oracles and
images, and altars and temples, and portioned out a sacred domain for
each of them. The least part of all these ought not to be disturbed by
the legislator; but he should assign to the several districts some God,
or demi-god, or hero, and, in the distribution of the soil, should give
to these first their chosen domain and all things fitting, that the
inhabitants of the several districts may meet at fixed times, and that
they may readily supply their various wants, and entertain one another
with sacrifices, and become friends and acquaintances; for there is no
greater good in a state than that the citizens should be known to one
another. When not light but darkness and ignorance of each other’s
characters prevails among them, no one will receive the honour of which
he is deserving, or the power or the justice to which he is fairly
entitled: wherefore, in every state, above all things, every man should
take heed that he have no deceit in him, but that he be always true and
simple; and that no deceitful person take any advantage of him.
The next move in our pastime of legislation, like the withdrawal of the
stone from the holy line in the game of draughts, being an unusual one,
will probably excite wonder when mentioned for the first time. And yet,
if a man will only reflect and weigh the matter with care, he will see
that our city is ordered in a manner which, if not the best, is the
second best. Perhaps also some one may not approve this form, because he
thinks that such a constitution is ill adapted to a legislator who has
not despotic power. The truth is, that there are three forms of
government, the best, the second and the third best, which we may just
mention, and then leave the selection to the ruler of the settlement.
Following this method in the present instance, let us speak of the
states which are respectively first, second, and third in excellence,
and then we will leave the choice to Cleinias now, or to any one else
who may hereafter have to make a similar choice among constitutions, and
may desire to give to his state some feature which is congenial to him
and which he approves in his own country.
The first and highest form of the state and of the government and of the
law is that in which there prevails most widely the ancient saying, that
“Friends have all things in common.” Whether there is anywhere now, or
will ever be, this communion of women and children and of property, in
which the private and individual is altogether banished from life, and
things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands,
have become common, and in some way see and hear and act in common, and
all men express praise and blame and feel joy and sorrow on the same
occasions, and whatever laws there are unite the city to the utmost —
whether all this is possible or not, I say that no man, acting upon any
other principle, will ever constitute a state which will be truer or
better or more exalted in virtue. Whether such a state is governed by
Gods or sons of Gods, one, or more than one, happy are the men who,
living after this manner, dwell there; and therefore to this we are to
look for the pattern of the state, and to cling to this, and to seek
with all our might for one which is like this. The state which we have
now in hand, when created, will be nearest to immortality and the only
one which takes the second place; and after that, by the grace of God,
we will complete the third one. And we will begin by speaking of the
nature and origin of the second.
Let the citizens at once distribute their land and houses, and not till
the land in common, since a community of goods goes beyond their
proposed origin, and nurture, and education. But in making the
distribution, let the several possessors feel that their particular lots
also belong to the whole city; and seeing that the earth is their
parent, let them tend her more carefully than children do their mother.
For she is a goddess and their queen, and they are her mortal subjects.
Such also are the feelings which they ought to entertain to the Gods and
demi-gods of the country. And in order that the distribution may always
remain, they ought to consider further that the present number of
families should be always retained, and neither increased nor
diminished. This may be secured for the whole city in the following
manner: Let the possessor of a lot leave the one of his children who is
his best beloved, and one only, to be the heir of his dwelling, and his
successor in the duty of ministering to the Gods, the state and the
family, as well the living members of it as those who are departed when
he comes into the inheritance; but of his other children, if he have
more than one, he shall give the females in marriage according to the
law to be hereafter enacted, and the males he shall distribute as sons
to those citizens who have no children and are disposed to receive them;
or if there should be none such, and particular individuals have too
many children, male or female, or too few, as in the case of barrenness
— in all these cases let the highest and most honourable magistracy
created by us judge and determine what is to be done with the redundant
or deficient, and devise a means that the number of 5040 houses shall
always remain the same. There are many ways of regulating numbers; for
they in whom generation is affluent may be made to refrain, and, on the
other hand, special care may be taken to increase the number of births
by rewards and stigmas, or we may meet the evil by the elder men giving
advice and administering rebuke to the younger — in this way the object
may be attained. And if after all there be very great difficulty about
the equal preservation of the 5040 houses, and there be an excess of
citizens, owing to the too great love of those who live together, and we
are at our wits’ end, there is still the old device often mentioned by
us of sending out a colony, which will part friends with us, and be
composed of suitable persons. If, on the other hand, there come a wave
bearing a deluge of disease, or a plague of war, and the inhabitants
become much fewer than the appointed number by reason of bereavement, we
ought not to introduce citizens of spurious birth and education, if this
can be avoided; but even God is said not to be able to fight against
necessity.
Wherefore let us suppose this “high argument” of ours to address us in
the following terms: Best of men, cease not to honour according to
nature similarity and equality and sameness and agreement, as regards
number and every good and noble quality. And, above all, observe the
aforesaid number 5040 throughout life; in the second place, do not
disparage the small and modest proportions of the inheritances which you
received in the distribution, by buying and selling them to one another.
For then neither will the God who gave you the lot be your friend, nor
will the legislator; and indeed the law declares to the disobedient that
these are the terms upon which he may or may not take the lot. In the
first place, the earth as he is informed is sacred to the Gods; and in
the next place, priests and priestesses will offer up prayers over a
first, and second, and even a third sacrifice, that he who buys or sells
the houses or lands which he has received, may suffer the punishment
which he deserves; and these their prayers they shall write down in the
temples, on tablets of cypress-wood, for the instruction of posterity.
Moreover they will set a watch over all these things, that they may be
observed; — the magistracy which has the sharpest eyes shall keep watch
that any infringement of these commands may be discovered and punished
as offences both against the law and the God. How great is the benefit
of such an ordinance to all those cities, which obey and are
administered accordingly, no bad man can ever know, as the old proverb
says; but only a man of experience and good habits. For in such an order
of things there will not be much opportunity for making money; no man
either ought, or indeed will be allowed, to exercise any ignoble
occupation, of which the vulgarity is a matter of reproach to a freeman,
and should never want to acquire riches by any such means.
Further, the law enjoins that no private man shall be allowed to possess
gold and silver, but only coin for daily use, which is almost necessary
in dealing with artisans, and for payment of hirelings, whether slaves
or immigrants, by all those persons who require the use of them.
Wherefore our citizens, as we say, should have a coin passing current
among themselves, but not accepted among the rest of mankind; with a
view, however, to expeditions and journeys to other lands — for
embassies, or for any other occasion which may arise of sending out a
herald, the state must also possess a common Hellenic currency. If a
private person is ever obliged to go abroad, let him have the consent of
the magistrates and go; and if when he returns he has any foreign money
remaining, let him give the surplus back to the treasury, and receive a
corresponding sum in the local currency. And if he is discovered to
appropriate it, let it be confiscated, and let him who knows and does
not inform be subject to curse and dishonour equally him who brought the
money, and also to a fine not less in amount than the foreign money
which has been brought back. In marrying and giving in marriage, no one
shall give or receive any dowry at all; and no one shall deposit money
with another whom he does not trust as a friend, nor shall he lend money
upon interest; and the borrower should be under no obligation to repay
either capital or interest. That these principles are best, any one may
see who compares them with the first principle and intention of a state.
The intention, as we affirm, of a reasonable statesman, is not what the
many declare to be the object of a good legislator, namely, that the
state for the true interests of which he is advising should be as great
and as rich as possible, and should possess gold and silver, and have
the greatest empire by sea and land; — this they imagine to be the real
object of legislation, at the same time adding, inconsistently, that the
true legislator desires to have the city the best and happiest possible.
But they do not see that some of these things are possible, and some of
them are impossible; and he who orders the state will desire what is
possible, and will not indulge in vain wishes or attempts to accomplish
that which is impossible. The citizen must indeed be happy and good, and
the legislator will seek to make him so; but very rich and very good at
the same time he cannot be, not, at least, in the sense in which the
many speak of riches. For they mean by “the rich” the few who have the
most valuable possessions, although the owner of them may quite well be
a rogue. And if this is true, I can never assent to the doctrine that
the rich man will be happy — he must be good as well as rich.
And good in a high degree, and rich in a high degree at the same time,
he cannot be. Some one will ask, why not? And we shall answer — Because
acquisitions which come from sources which are just and unjust
indifferently, are more than double those which come from just sources
only; and the sums which are expended neither honourably nor
disgracefully, are only half as great as those which are expended
honourably and on honourable purposes. Thus, if the one acquires double
and spends half, the other who is in the opposite case and is a good man
cannot possibly be wealthier than he. The first — I am speaking of the
saver and not of the spender — is not always bad; he may indeed in some
cases be utterly bad, but, as I was saying, a good man he never is. For
he who receives money unjustly as well as justly, and spends neither nor
unjustly, will be a rich man if he be also thrifty. On the other hand,
the utterly bad is in general profligate, and therefore very poor; while
he who spends on noble objects, and acquires wealth by just means only,
can hardly be remarkable for riches, any more than he can be very poor.
Our statement, then, is true, that the very rich are not good, and, if
they are not good, they are not happy. But the intention of our laws was
that the citizens should be as happy as may be, and as friendly as
possible to one another. And men who are always at law with one another,
and amongst whom there are many wrongs done, can never be friends to one
another, but only those among whom crimes and lawsuits are few and
slight. Therefore we say that gold and silver ought not to be allowed in
the city, nor much of the vulgar sort of trade which is carried on by
lending money, or rearing the meaner kinds of live stock; but only the
produce of agriculture, and only so much of this as will not compel us
in pursuing it to neglect that for the sake of which riches exist — I
mean, soul and body, which without gymnastics, and without education,
will never be worth anything; and therefore, as we have said not once
but many times, the care of riches should have the last place in our
thoughts.
For there are in all three things about which every man has an interest;
and the interest about money, when rightly regarded, is the third and
lowest of them: midway comes the interest of the body; and, first of
all, that of the soul; and the state which we are describing will have
been rightly constituted if it ordains honours according to this scale.
But if, in any of the laws which have been ordained, health has been
preferred to temperance, or wealth to health and temperate habits, that
law must clearly be wrong.
Wherefore, also, the legislator ought often to impress upon himself the
question — “What do I want?” and “Do I attain my aim, or do I miss the
mark?” In this way, and in this way only, he ma acquit himself and free
others from the work of legislation.
Let the allottee then hold his lot upon the conditions which we have
mentioned.
It would be well that every man should come to the colony having all
things equal; but seeing that this is not possible, and one man will
have greater possessions than another, for many reasons and in
particular in order to preserve equality in special crises of the state,
qualifications of property must be unequal, in order that offices and
contributions and distributions may be proportioned to the value of each
person’s wealth, and not solely to the virtue of his ancestors or
himself, nor yet to the strength and beauty of his person, but also to
the measure of his wealth or poverty; and so by a law of inequality,
which will be in proportion to his wealth, he will receive honours and
offices as equally as possible, and there will be no quarrels and
disputes. To which end there should be four different standards
appointed according to the amount of property: there should be a first
and a second and a third and a fourth class, in which the citizens will
be placed, and they will be called by these or similar names: they may
continue in the same rank, or pass into another in any individual case,
on becoming richer from being, poorer, or poorer from being richer. The
form of law which I should propose as the natural sequel would be as
follows: In a state which is desirous of being saved from the greatest
of all plagues — not faction, but rather distraction; — here should
exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty, nor, again, excess of
wealth, for both are productive of both these evils. Now the legislator
should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or wealth.
Let the limit of poverty be the value of the lot; this ought to be
preserved, and no ruler, nor any one else who aspires after a reputation
for virtue, will allow the lot to be impaired in any case. This the
legislator gives as a measure, and he will permit a man to acquire
double or triple, or as much as four times the amount of this.
But if a person have yet greater riches, whether he has found them, or
they have been given to him, or he has made them in business, or has
acquired by any stroke of fortune that which is in excess of the
measure, if he give back the surplus to the state, and to the Gods who
are the patrons of the state, he shall suffer no penalty or loss of
reputation; but if he disobeys this our law any one who likes may inform
against him and receive half the value of the excess, and the delinquent
shall pay a sum equal to the excess out of his own property, and the
other half of the excess shall belong to the Gods. And let every
possession of every man, with the exception of the lot, be publicly
registered before the magistrates whom the law appoints, so that all
suits about money may be easy and quite simple.
The next thing to be noted is, that the city should be placed as nearly
as possible in the centre of the country; we should choose a place which
possesses what is suitable for a city, and this may easily be imagined
and described. Then we will divide the city into twelve portions, first
founding temples to Hestia, to Zeus and to Athene, in a spot which we
will call the Acropolis, and surround with a circular wall, making the
division of the entire city and country radiate from this point. The
twelve portions shall be equalized by the provision that those which are
of good land shall be smaller. while those of inferior quality shall be
larger. The number of the lots shall be 5040, and each of them shall be
divided into two, and every allotment shall be composed of two such
sections; one of land near the city, the other of land which is at a
distance.
This arrangement shall be carried out in the following manner: The
section which is near the city shall be added to that which is on
borders, and form one lot, and the portion which is next nearest shall
be added to the portion which is next farthest; and so of the rest.
Moreover, in the two sections of the lots the same principle of
equalization of the soil ought to be maintained; the badness and
goodness shall be compensated by more and less. And the legislator shall
divide the citizens into twelve parts, and arrange the rest of their
property, as far as possible, so as to form twelve equal parts; and
there shall be a registration of all. After this they shall assign
twelve lots to twelve Gods, and call them by their names, and dedicate
to each God their several portions, and call the tribes after them. And
they shall distribute the twelve divisions of the city in the same way
in which they divided the country; and every man shall have two
habitations, one in the centre of the country, and the other at the
extremity. Enough of the manner of settlement.
Now we ought by all means to consider that there can never be such a
happy concurrence of circumstances as we have described; neither can all
things coincide as they are wanted. Men who will not take offence at
such a mode of living together, and will endure all their life long to
have their property fixed at a moderate limit, and to beget children in
accordance with our ordinances, and will allow themselves to be deprived
of gold and other things which the legislator, as is evident from these
enactments, will certainly forbid them; and will endure, further, the
situation of the land with the city in the middle and dwellings round
about; — all this is as if the legislator were telling his dreams, or
making a city and citizens of wax. There is truth in these objections,
and therefore every one should take to heart what I am going to say.
Once more, then, the legislator shall appear and address us: “O my
friends,” he will say to us, “do not suppose me ignorant that there is a
certain degree of truth in your words; but I am of opinion that, in
matters which are not present but future, he who exhibits a pattern of
that at which he aims, should in nothing fall short of the fairest and
truest; and that if he finds any part of this work impossible of
execution he should avoid and not execute it, but he should contrive to
carry out that which is nearest and most akin to it; you must allow the
legislator to perfect his design, and when it is perfected, you should
join with him in considering what part of his legislation is expedient
and what will arouse opposition; for surely the artist who is to be
deemed worthy of any regard at all, ought always to make his work
self-consistent.” Having determined that there is to be a distribution
into twelve parts, let us now see in what way this may be accomplished.
There is no difficulty in perceiving that the twelve parts admit of the
greatest number of divisions of that which they include, or in seeing
the other numbers which are consequent upon them, and are produced out
of them up to 5040; wherefore the law ought to order phratries and demes
and villages, and also military ranks and movements, as well as coins
and measures, dry and liquid, and weights, so as to be commensurable and
agreeable to one another.
Nor should we fear the appearance of minuteness, if the law commands
that all the vessels which a man possesses should have a common measure,
when we consider generally that the divisions and variations of numbers
have a use in respect of all the variations of which they are
susceptible, both in themselves and as measures of height and depth, and
in all sounds, and in motions, as well those which proceed in a straight
direction, upwards or downwards, as in those which go round and round.
The legislator is to consider all these things and to bid the citizens,
as far as possible, not to lose sight of numerical order; for no single
instrument of youthful education has such mighty power, both as regards
domestic economy and politics, and in the arts, as the study of
arithmetic.
Above all, arithmetic stirs up him who is by nature sleepy and dull, and
makes him quick to learn, retentive, shrewd, and aided by art divine he
makes progress quite beyond his natural powers.
All such things, if only the legislator, by other laws and institutions,
can banish meanness and covetousness from the souls of men, so that they
can use them properly and to their own good, will be excellent and
suitable instruments of education. But if he cannot, he will
unintentionally create in them, instead of wisdom, the habit of craft,
which evil tendency may be observed in the Egyptians and Phoenicians,
and many other races, through the general vulgarity of their pursuits
and acquisitions, whether some unworthy legislator theirs has been the
cause, or some impediment of chance or nature. For we must not fail to
observe, O Megillus and Cleinias, that there is a difference in places,
and that some beget better men and others worse; and we must legislate
accordingly.
Some places are subject to strange and fatal influences by reason of
diverse winds and violent heats, some by reason of waters; or, again,
from the character of the food given by the earth, which not only
affects the bodies of men for good or evil, but produces similar results
in their souls. And in all such qualities those spots excel in which
there is a divine inspiration, and in which the demi-gods have their
appointed lots, and are propitious, not adverse, to the settlers in
them. To all these matters the legislator, if he have any sense in him,
will attend as far as man can, and frame his laws accordingly. And this
is what you, Cleinias, must do, and to matters of this kind you must
turn your mind since you are going to colonize a new country. Cleinias
Your words, Athenian Stranger, are excellent, and I will do as you say.
BOOK VI
Athenian Stranger. And now having made an end of the preliminaries we
will proceed to the appointment of magistracies.
Cleinias. Very good.
Ath. In the ordering of a state there are two parts: first, the number
of the magistracies, and the mode of establishing them; and, secondly,
when they have been established, laws again will have to be provided for
each of them, suitable in nature and number. But before electing the
magistrates let us stop a little and say a word in season about the
election of them.
Cle. What have you got to say?
Ath. This is what I have to say; every one can see, that although the
work of legislation is a most important matter, yet if a well-ordered
city superadd to good laws unsuitable offices, not only will there be no
use in having the good laws — not only will they be ridiculous and
useless, but the greatest political injury and evil will accrue from
them.
Cle. Of course.
Ath. Then now, my friend, let us observe what will happen in the
constitution of out intended state. In the first place, you will
acknowledge that those who are duly appointed to magisterial power, and
their families, should severally have given satisfactory proof of what
they are, from youth upward until the time of election; in the next
place, those who are to elect should have been trained in habits of law,
and be well educated, that they may have a right judgment, and may be
able to select or reject men whom they approve or disapprove, as they
are worthy of either. But how can we imagine that those who are brought
together for the first time, and are strangers to one another, and also
uneducated, will avoid making mistakes in the choice of magistrates?
Cle. Impossible.
Ath. The matter is serious, and excuses will not serve the turn. I will
tell you, then, what you and I will have to do, since you, as you tell
me, with nine others, have offered to settle the new state on behalf of
the people of Crete, and I am to help you by the invention of the
present romance. I certainly should not like to leave the tale wandering
all over the world without a head; — a headless monster is such a
hideous thing.
Cle. Excellent, Stranger.
Ath. Yes; and I will be as good as my word.
Cle. Let us by all means do as you propose.
Ath. That we will, by the grace of God, if old age will only permit us.
Cle. But God will be gracious.
Ath. Yes; and under his guidance let us consider further point.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. Let us remember what a courageously mad and daring creation this
our city is.
Cle. What had you in your mind when you said that?
Ath. I had in my mind the free and easy manner in which we are ordaining
that the inexperienced colonists shall receive our laws. Now a man need
not be very wise, Cleinias, in order to see that no one can easily
receive laws at their first imposition. But if we could anyhow wait
until those who have been imbued with them from childhood, and have been
nurtured in them, and become habituated to them, take their part in the
public elections of the state; I say, if this could be accomplished, and
rightly accomplished by any way or contrivance — then, I think that
there would be very little danger, at the end of the time, of a state
thus trained not being permanent.
Cle. A reasonable supposition.
Ath. Then let us consider if we can find any way out of the difficulty;
for I maintain, Cleinias, that the Cnosians, above all the other
Cretans, should not be satisfied with barely discharging their duty to
the colony, but they ought to take the utmost pains to establish the
offices which are first created by them in the best and surest manner.
Above all, this applies to the selection of the guardians of the law,
who must be chosen first of all, and with the greatest care; the others
are of less importance.
Cle. What method can we devise of electing them?
Ath. This will be the method: Sons of the Cretans, I shall say to them,
inasmuch as the Cnosians have precedence over the other states, they
should, in common with those who join this settlement, choose a body of
thirty-seven in all, nineteen of them being taken from the settlers, and
the remainder from the citizens of Cnosus. Of those latter the Cnosians
shall make a present to your colony, and you yourself shall be one of
the eighteen, and shall become a citizen of the new state; and if you
and they cannot be persuaded to go, the Cnosians may fairly use a little
violence in order to make you.
Cle. But why, Stranger, do not you and Megillus take a part in our new
city?
Ath. O, Cleinias, Athens is proud, and Sparta too; and they are both a
long way off. But you and likewise the other colonists are conveniently
situated as you describe. I have been speaking of the way in which the
new citizens may be best managed under present circumstances; but in
after-ages, if the city continues to exist, let the election be on this
wise. All who are horse or foot soldiers, or have seen military service
at the proper ages when they were severally fitted for it, shall share
in the election of magistrates; and the election shall be held in
whatever temple the state deems most venerable, and every one shall
carry his vote to the altar of the God, writing down on a tablet the
name of the person for whom he votes, and his father’s name, and his
tribe, and ward; and at the side he shall write his own name in like
manner. Any one who pleases may take away any tablet which he does not
think properly filled up, and exhibit it in the Agara for a period of
not less than thirty days. The tablets which are judged to be first, to
the number of 300, shall be shown by the magistrates to the whole city,
and the citizens shall in like manner select from these the candidates
whom they prefer; and this second selection, to the number of 100, shall
be again exhibited to the citizens; in the third, let any one who
pleases select whom pleases out of the 100, walking through the parts of
victims, and let them choose for magistrates and proclaim the seven and
thirty who have the greatest number of votes.
But who, Cleinias and Megillus, will order for us in the colony all this
matter of the magistrates, and the scrutinies of them? If we reflect, we
shall see that cities which are in process of construction like ours
must have some such persons, who cannot possibly be elected before there
are any magistrates; and yet they must be elected in some way, and they
are not to be inferior men, but the best possible. For as the proverb
says, “a good beginning is half the business”; and “to have begun well”
is praised by all, and in my opinion is a great deal more than half the
business, and has never been praised by any one enough.
Cle. That is very true.
Ath. Then let us recognize the difficulty, and make clear to our own
minds how the beginning is to be accomplished. There is only one
proposal which I have to offer, and that is one which, under our
circumstances, is both necessary and expedient.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. I maintain that this colony of ours has a father and mother, who
are no other than the colonizing state. Well I know that many colonies
have been, and will be, at enmity with their parents. But in early days
the child, as in a family, loves and is beloved; even if there come a
time later when the tie is broken, still, while he is in want of
education, he naturally loves his parents and is beloved by them, and
flies to his relatives for protection, and finds in them his only
natural allies in time of need; and this parental feeling already exists
in the Cnosians, as is shown by their care of the new city; and there is
a similar feeling on the part of the young city towards Cnosus. And I
repeat what I was saying — for there is no harm in repeating a good
thing — that the Cnosians should take a common interest in all these
matters, and choose, as far as they can, the eldest and best of the
colonists, to the number of not less than a hundred; and let there be
another hundred of the Cnosians themselves.
These, I say, on their arrival, should have a joint care that the
magistrates should be appointed according to law, and that when they are
appointed they should undergo a scrutiny. When this has been effected,
the Cnosians shall return home, and the new city do the best she can for
her own preservation and happiness. I would have the seven-and-thirty
now, and in all future time, chosen to fulfil the following duties: Let
them, in the first place, be the guardians of the law; and, secondly, of
the registers in which each one registers before the magistrate the
amount of his property, excepting four minae which are allowed to
citizens of the first class, three allowed to the second, two to the
third, and a single mina to the fourth. And if any one, despising the
laws for the sake of gain, be found to possess anything more which has
not been registered, let all that he has in excess be confiscated, and
let him be liable to a suit which shall be the reverse of honourable or
fortunate. And let any one who will, indict him on the charge of loving
base gains, and proceed against him before the guardians of the law. And
if he be cast, let him lose his share of the public possessions, and
when there is any public distribution, let him have nothing but his
original lot; and let him be written down a condemned man as long as he
lives, in some place in which any one who pleases can read about his
onces. The guardian of the law shall not hold office longer than twenty
years, and shall not be less than fifty years of age when he is elected;
or if he is elected when he is sixty years of age, he shall hold office
for ten years only; and upon the same principle, he must not imagine
that he will be permitted to hold such an important office as that of
guardian of the laws after he is seventy years of age, if he live so
long.
These are the three first ordinances about the guardians of the law; as
the work of legislation progresses, each law in turn will assign to them
their further duties. And now we may proceed in order to speak of the
election of other officers; for generals have to be elected, and these
again must have their ministers, commanders, and colonels of horse, and
commanders of brigades of foot, who would be more rightly called by
their popular name of brigadiers.
The guardians of the law shall propose as generals men who are natives
of the city, and a selection from the candidates proposed shall be made
by those who are or have been of the age for military service. And if
one who is not proposed is thought by somebody to be better than one who
is, let him name whom he prefers in the place of whom, and make oath
that he is better, and propose him; and whichever of them is approved by
vote shall be admitted to the final selection; and the three who have
the greatest number of votes shall be appointed generals, and
superintendents of military affairs, after previously undergoing a
scrutiny, like the guardians of the law. And let the generals thus
elected propose twelve brigadiers, one for each tribe; and there shall
be a right of counterproposal as in the case of the generals, and the
voting and decision shall take place in the same way. Until the prytanes
and council are elected, the guardians of the law shall convene the
assembly in some holy spot which is suitable to the purpose, placing the
hoplites by themselves, and the cavalry by themselves, and in a third
division all the rest of the army. All are to vote for the generals [and
for the colonels of horse], but the brigadiers are to be voted for only
by those who carry shields [i.e. the hoplites]. Let the body of cavalry
choose phylarchs for the generals; but captains of light troops, or
archers, or any other division of the army, shall be appointed by the
generals for themselves. There only remains the appointment of officers
of cavalry: these shall be proposed by the same persons who proposed the
generals, and the election and the counter-proposal of other candidates
shall be arranged in the same way as in the case of the generals, and
let the cavalry vote and the infantry look on at the election; the two
who have the greatest number of votes shall be the leaders of all the
horse. Disputes about the voting may be raised once or twice; but if the
dispute be raised a third time, the officers who preside at the several
elections shall decide.
The council shall consist of 30 x 12 members — 360 will be a convenient
number for sub-division. If we divide the whole number into four parts
of ninety each, we get ninety counsellors for each class. First, all the
citizens shall select candidates from the first class; they shall be
compelled to vote, and, if they do not, shall be duly fined. When the
candidates have been selected, some one shall mark them down; this shall
be the business of the first day.
And on the following day, candidates shall be selected from the second
class in the same manner and under the same conditions as on the
previous day; and on the third day a selection shall be made from the
third class, at which every one may, if he likes, vote, and the three
first classes shall be compelled to vote; but the fourth and lowest
class shall be under no compulsion, and any member of this class who
does not vote shall not be punished. On the fourth day candidates shall
be selected from the fourth and smallest class; they shall be selected
by all, but he who is of the fourth class shall suffer no penalty, nor
he who is of the third, if he be not willing to vote; but he who is of
the first or second class, if he does not vote shall be punished; — he
who is of the second class shall pay a fine of triple the amount which
was exacted at first, and he who is of the first class quadruple. On the
fifth day the rulers shall bring out the names noted down, for all the
citizens to see, and every man shall choose out of them, under pain, if
he do not, of suffering the first penalty; and when they have chosen out
of each of the classes, they shall choose one-half of them by lot, who
shall undergo a scrutiny: These are to form the council for the year.
The mode of election which has been described is in a mean between
monarchy and democracy, and such a mean the state ought always to
observe; for servants and masters never can be friends, nor good and
bad, merely because they are declared to have equal privileges. For to
unequals equals become unequal, if they are not harmonized by measure;
and both by reason of equality, and by reason of inequality, cities are
filled with seditions. The old saying, that “equality makes friendship,”
is happy and also true; but there is obscurity and confusion as to what
sort of equality is meant. For there are two equalities which are called
by the same name, but are in reality in many ways almost the opposite of
one another; one of them may be introduced without difficulty, by any
state or any legislator in the distribution of honours: this is the rule
of measure, weight, and number, which regulates and apportions them. But
there is another equality, of a better and higher kind, which is not so
easily recognized. This is the judgment of Zeus; among men it avails but
little; that little, however, is the source of the greatest good to
individuals and states. For it gives to the greater more, and to the
inferior less and in proportion to the nature of each; and, above all,
greater honour always to the greater virtue, and to the less less; and
to either in proportion to their respective measure of virtue and
education. And this is justice, and is ever the true principle of
states, at which we ought to aim, and according to this rule order the
new city which is now being founded, and any other city which may be
hereafter founded. To this the legislator should looknot to the
interests of tyrants one or more, or to the power of the people, but to
justice always; which, as I was saying, the distribution of natural
equality among unequals in each case. But there are times at which every
state is compelled to use the words, “just,” “equal,” in a secondary
sense, in the hope of escaping in some degree from factions. For equity
and indulgence are infractions of the perfect and strict rule of
justice. And this is the reason why we are obliged to use the equality
of the lot, in order to avoid the discontent of the people; and so we
invoke God and fortune in our prayers, and beg that they themselves will
direct the lot with a view to supreme justice. And therefore, although
we are compelled to use both equalities, we should use that into which
the element of chance enters as seldom as possible.
Thus, O my friends, and for the reasons given, should a state act which
would endure and be saved. But as a ship sailing on the sea has to be
watched night and day, in like manner a city also is sailing on a sea of
politics, and is liable to all sorts of insidious assaults; and
therefore from morning to night, and from night to morning, rulers must
join hands with rulers, and watchers with watchers, receiving and giving
up their trust in a perpetual succession. Now a multitude can never
fulfil a duty of this sort with anything like energy. Moreover, the
greater number of the senators will have to be left during the greater
part of the year to order their concerns at their own homes. They will
therefore have to be arranged in twelve portions, answering to the
twelve months, and furnish guardians of the state, each portion for a
single month.
Their business is to be at hand and receive any foreigner or citizen who
comes to them, whether to give information, or to put one of those
questions, to which, when asked by other cities, a city should give an
answer, and to which, if she ask them herself, she should receive an
answer; or again, when there is a likelihood of internal commotions,
which are always liable to happen in some form or other, they will, if
they can, prevent their occurring; or if they have already occurred,
will lose time in making them known to the city, and healing the evil.
Wherefore, also, this which is the presiding body of the state ought
always to have the control of their assemblies, and of the dissolutions
of them, ordinary as well as extraordinary. All this is to be ordered by
the twelfth part of the council, which is always to keep watch together
with the other officers of the state during one portion of the year, and
to rest during the remaining eleven portions.
Thus will the city be fairly ordered. And now, who is to have, the
superintendence of the country, and what shall be the arrangement?
Seeing that the whole city and the entire country have been both of them
divided into twelve portions, ought there not to be appointed
superintendents of the streets of the city, and of the houses, and
buildings, and harbours, and the agora, and fountains, and sacred
domains, and temples, and the like?
Cle. To be sure there ought.
Ath. Let us assume, then, that there ought to be servants of the
temples, and priests and priestesses. There must also be superintendents
of roads and buddings, who will have a care of men, that they may do no
harm, and also of beasts, both within the enclosure and in the suburbs.
Three kinds of officers will thus have to be appointed, in order that
the city may be suitably provided according to her needs. Those who have
the care of the city shall be called wardens of the city; and those who
have the care of the agora shall be called wardens of the agora; and
those who have the care of the temples shall be called priests. Those
who hold hereditary offices as priests or priestesses, shall not be
disturbed; but if there be few or none such, as is probable at the
foundation of a new city, priests and priestesses shall be appointed to
be servants of the Gods who have no servants. Some of our officers shall
be elected, and others appointed by lot, those who are of the people and
those who are not of the people mingling in a friendly manner in every
place and city, that the state may be as far as possible of one mind.
The officers of the temples shall be appointed by lot; in this way their
election will be committed to God, that he may do what is agreeable to
him. And he who obtains a lot shall undergo a scrutiny, first, as to
whether he is sound of body and of legitimate birth; and in the second
place, in order to show that he is of a perfectly pure family, not
stained with homicide or any similar impiety in his own person, and also
that his father and mother have led a similar unstained life. Now the
laws about all divine things should be brought from Delphi, and
interpreters appointed, under whose direction they should be used. The
tenure of the priesthood should always be for a year and no longer; and
he who will duly execute the sacred office, according to the laws of
religion, must be not less than sixty years of age — the laws shall be
the same about priestesses. As for the interpreters, they shall be
appointed thus: Let the twelve tribes be distributed into groups of
four, and let each group select four, one out of each tribe within the
group, three times; and let the three who have the greatest number of
votes [out of the twelve appointed by each group], after undergoing a
scrutiny, nine in all, be sent to Delphi, in order that the God may
return one out of each triad; their age shall be the same as that of the
priests, and the scrutiny of them shall be conducted in the same manner;
let them be interpreters for life, and when any one dies let the four
tribes select another from the tribe of the deceased. Moreover, besides
priests and interpreters, there must be treasurers, who will take charge
of the property of the several temples, and of the sacred domains, and
shall have authority over the produce and the letting of them; and three
of them shall be chosen from the highest classes for the greater
temples, and two for the lesser, and one for the least of all; the
manner of their election and the scrutiny of them shall be the same as
that of the generals. This shall be the order of the temples.
Let everything have a guard as far as possible. Let the defence of the
city be commited to the generals, and taxiarchs, and hipparchs, and
phylarchs, and prytanes, and the wardens of the city, and of the agora,
when the election of them has been completed. The defence of the country
shall be provided for as follows: The entire land has been already
distributed into twelve as nearly as possible equal parts, and let the
tribe allotted to a division provide annually for it five wardens of the
country and commanders of the watch; and let each body of five have the
power of selecting twelve others out of the youth of their own tribe —
these shall be not less than twenty-five years of age, and not more than
thirty. And let there be allotted to them severally every month the
various districts, in order that they may all acquire knowledge and
experience of the whole country. The term of service for commanders and
for watchers shall continue during two years. After having had their
stations allotted to them, they will go from place to place in regular
order, making their round from left to right as their commanders direct
them; (when I speak of going to the right, I mean that they are to go to
the east). And at the commencement of the second year, in order that as
many as possible of the guards may not only get a knowledge of the
country at any one season of the year, but may also have experience of
the manner in which different places are affected at different seasons
of the year, their then commanders shall lead them again towards the
left, from place to place in succession, until they have completed the
second year. In the third year other wardens of the country shall be
chosen and commanders of the watch, five for each division, who are to
be the superintendents of the bands of twelve. While on service at each
station, their attention shall be directed to the following points: In
the first place, they shall see that the country is well protected
against enemies; they shall trench and dig wherever this is required,
and, as far as they can, they shall by fortifications keep off the
evil-disposed, in order to prevent them from doing any harm to the
country or the property; they shall use the beasts of burden and the
labourers whom they find on the spot: these will be their instruments
whom they will superintend, taking them, as far as possible, at the
times when they are not engaged in their regular business.
They shall make every part of the country inaccessible to enemies, and
as accessible as possible to friends; there shall be ways for man and
beasts of burden and for cattle, and they shall take care to have them
always as smooth as they can; and shall provide against the rains doing
harm instead of good to the land, when they come down from the mountains
into the hollow dells; and shall keep in the overflow by the help of
works and ditches, in order that the valleys, receiving and drinking up
the rain from heaven, and providing fountains and streams in the fields
and regions which lie underneath, may furnish even to the dry places
plenty of good water. The fountains of water, whether of rivers or of
springs, shall be ornamented with plantations and buildings for beauty;
and let them bring together the streams in subterraneous channels, and
make all things plenteous; and if there be a sacred grove or dedicated
precinct in the neighbourhood, they shall conduct the water to the
actual temples of the Gods, and so beautify them at all seasons of the
year. Everywhere in such places the youth shall make gymnasia for
themselves, and warm baths for the aged, placing by them abundance of
dry wood, for the benefit of those labouring under disease — there the
weary frame of the rustic, worn with toil, will receive a kindly
welcome, far better than he would at the hands of a not over-wise
doctor.
The building of these and the like works will be useful and ornamental;
they will provide a pleasing amusement, but they will be a serious
employment too; for the sixty wardens will have to guard their several
divisions, not only with a view to enemies, but also with an eye to
professing friends. When a quarrel arises among neighbours or citizens,
and any one, whether slave or freeman wrongs another, let the five
wardens decide small matters on their own authority; but where the
charge against another relates to greater matters, the seventeen
composed of the fives and twelves, shall determine any charges which one
man brings against another, not involving more than three minae. Every
judge and magistrate shall be liable to give an account of his conduct
in office, except those who, like kings, have the final decision.
Moreover, as regards the aforesaid wardens of the country, if they do
any wrong to those of whom they have the care, whether by imposing upon
them unequal tasks, or by taking the produce of the soil or implements
of husbandry without their consent; also if they receive anything in the
way of a bribe, or decide suits unjustly, or if they yield to the
influences of flattery, let them be publicly dishonoured; and in regard
to any other wrong which they do to the inhabitants of the country, if
the question be of a mina, let them submit to the decision of the
villagers in the neighbourhood; but in suits of greater amount, or in
case of lesser, if they refuse to submit, trusting that their monthly
removal into another part of the country will enable them to escape — in
such cases the injured party may bring his suit in the common court, and
if he obtain a verdict he may exact from the defendant, who refused to
submit, a double penalty.
The wardens and the overseers of the country, while on their two years
service, shall have common meals at their several stations, and shall
all live together; and he who is absent from the common meal, or sleeps
out, if only for one day or night, unless by order of his commanders, or
by reason of absolute necessity, if the five denounce him and inscribe
his name the agora as not having kept his guard, let him be deemed to
have betrayed the city, as far as lay in his power, and let him be
disgraced and beaten with impunity by any one who meets him and is
willing to punish him. If any of the commanders is guilty of such an
irregularity, the whole company of sixty shall see to it, and he who is
cognizant of the offence, and does not bring the offender to trial,
shall be amenable to the same laws as the younger offender himself, and
shall pay a heavier fine, and be incapable of ever commanding the young.
The guardians of the law are to be careful inspectors of these matters,
and shall either prevent or punish offenders. Every man should remember
the universal rule, that he who is not a good servant will not be a good
master; a man should pride himself more upon serving well than upon
commanding well: first upon serving the laws, which is also the service
of the Gods; in the second place, upon having. served ancient and
honourable men in the days of his youth. Furthermore, during the two
years in which any one is a warden of the country, his daily food ought
to be of a simple and humble kind.
When the twelve have been chosen, let them and the five meet together,
and determine that they will be their own servants, and, like servants,
will not have other slaves and servants for their own use, neither will
they use those of the villagers and husbandmen for their private
advantage, but for the public service only; and in general they should
make up their minds to live independently by themselves, servants of
each other and of themselves. Further, at all seasons of the year,
summer and winter alike, let them be under arms and survey minutely the
whole country; thus they will at once keep guard, and at the same time
acquire a perfect knowledge of every locality. There can be no more
important kind of information than the exact knowledge of a man’s own
country; and for this as well as for more general reasons of pleasure
and advantage, hunting with dogs and other kinds of sports should be
pursued by the young. The service to whom this is committed may be
called the secret police, or wardens of the country; the name does not
much signify, but every one who has the safety of the state at heart
will use his utmost diligence in this service.
After the wardens of the country, we have to speak of the election of
wardens of the agora and of the city. The wardens of the country were
sixty in number, and the wardens of the city will be three, and will
divide the twelve parts of the city into three; like the former, they
shall have care of the ways, and of the different high roads which lead
out of the country into the city, and of the buildings, that they may be
all made according to law; — also of the waters, which the guardians of
the supply preserve and convey to them, care being taken that they may
reach the fountains pure and abundant, and be both an ornament and a
benefit to the city. These also should be men of influence, and at
leisure to take care of the public interest. Let every man propose as
warden of the city any one whom he likes out of the highest class, and
when the vote has been given on them, and the number is reduced to the
six who have the greatest number of votes, let the electing officers
choose by lot three out of the six, and when they have undergone a
scrutiny let them hold office according to the laws laid down for them.
Next, let the wardens of the agora be elected in like manner, out of the
first and second class, five in number: ten are to be first elected, and
out of the ten five are to be chosen by lot, as in the election of the
wardens of the city: these when they have undergone a scrutiny are to be
declared magistrates. Every one shall vote for every one, and he who
will not vote, if he be informed against before the magistrates, shall
be fined fifty drachmae, and shall also be deemed a bad citizen. Let any
one who likes go to the assembly and to the general council; it shall be
compulsory to go on citizens of the first and second class, and they
shall pay a fine of ten drachmae if they be found not answering to their
names at the assembly. the third and fourth class shall be under no
compulsion, and shall be let off without a fine, unless the magistrates
have commanded all to be present, in consequence of some urgent
necessity. The wardens of the agora shall observe the order appointed by
law for the agora, and shall have the charge of the temples and
fountains which are in the agora; and they shall see that no one injures
anything, and punish him who does, with stripes and bonds, if he be a
slave or stranger; but if he be a citizen who misbehaves in this way,
they shall have the power themselves of inflicting a fine upon him to
the amount of a hundred drachmae, or with the consent of the wardens of
the city up to double that amount. And let the wardens of the city have
a similar power of imposing punishments and fines in their own
department; and let them impose fines by their own department; and let
them impose fines by their own authority, up to a mina, or up to two
minae with the consent of the wardens of the agora.
In the next place, it will be proper to appoint directors of music and
gymnastic, two kinds of each — of the one kind the business will be
education, of the other, the superintendence of contests. In speaking of
education, the law means to speak of those who have the care of order
and instruction in gymnasia and schools, and of the going to school, and
of school buildings for boys and girls; and in speaking of contests, the
law refers to the judges of gymnastics and of music; these again are
divided into two classes, the one having to do with music, the other
with gymnastics; and the same who judge of the gymnastic contests of
men, shall judge of horses; but in music there shall be one set of
judges of solo singing, and of imitation — I mean of rhapsodists,
players on the harp, the flute and the like, and another who shall judge
of choral song.
First of all, we must choose directors for the choruses of boys, and
men, and maidens, whom they shall follow in the amusement of the dance,
and for our other musical arrangements; — one director will be enough
for the choruses, and he should be not less than forty years of age. One
director will also be enough to introduce the solo singers, and to give
judgment on the competitors, and he ought not to be less than thirty
years of age. The director and manager of the choruses shall be elected
after the following manner: Let any persons who commonly take an
interest in such matters go to the meeting, and be fined if they do not
go (the guardians of the law shall judge of their fault), but those who
have no interest shall not be compelled. The elector shall propose as
director some one who understands music, and he in the scrutiny may be
challenged on the one part by those who say he has no skill, and
defended on the other hand by those who say that he has. Ten are to be
elected by vote, and he of the ten who is chosen by lot shall undergo a
scrutiny, and lead the choruses for a year according to law. And in like
manner the competitor who wins the lot shall be leader of the solo and
concert music for that year; and he who is thus elected shall deliver
the award to the judges. In the next place, we have to choose judges in
the contests of horses and of men; these shall be selected from the
third and also from the second class of citizens, and three first
classes shall be compelled to go to the election, but the lowest may
stay away with impunity; and let there be three elected by lot out of
the twenty who have been chosen previously, and they must also have the
vote and approval of the examiners.
But if any one is rejected in the scrutiny at any ballot or decision,
others shall be chosen in the same manner, and undergo a similar
scrutiny.
There remains the minister of the education of youth, male and female;
he too will rule according to law; one such minister will be sufficient,
and he must be fifty years old, and have children lawfully begotten,
both boys and girls by preference, at any rate, one or the other. He who
is elected, and he who is the elector, should consider that of all the
great offices of state, this is the greatest; for the first shoot of any
plant, if it makes a good start towards the attainment of its natural
excellence, has the greatest effect on its maturity; and this is not
only true of plants, but of animals wild and tame, and also of men. Man,
as we say, is a tame or civilized animal; nevertheless, he requires
proper instruction and a fortunate nature, and then of all animals he
becomes the most divine and most civilized; but if he be insufficiently
or ill educated he is the most savage of earthly creatures. Wherefore
the legislator ought not to allow the education of children to become a
secondary or accidental matter. In the first place, he who would be
rightly provident about them, should begin by taking care that he is
elected, who of all the citizens is in every way best; him the
legislator shall do his utmost to appoint guardian and superintendent.
To this end all the magistrates, with the exception of the council and
prytanes, shall go to the temple of Apollo, and elect by ballot him of
the guardians of the law whom they severally think will be the best
superintendent of education. And he who has the greatest number of
votes, after he has undergone a scrutiny at the hands of all the
magistrates who have been his electors, with the exception of the
guardians of the law — shall hold office for five years; and in the
sixth year let another be chosen in like manner to fill his office.
If any one dies while he is holding a public office, and more than
thirty days before his term of office expires, let those whose business
it is elect another to the office in the same manner as before.
And if any one who is entrusted with orphans dies, let the relations
both on the father’s and mother’s side, who are residing at home,
including cousins, appoint another guardian within ten days, or be fined
a drachma a day for neglect to do so.
A city which has no regular courts of law ceases to be a city; and
again, if a judge is silent and says no more in preliminary proceedings
than the litigants, as is the case in arbitrations, he will never be
able to decide justly; wherefore a multitude of judges will not easily
judge well, nor a few if they are bad. The point in dispute between the
parties should be made clear; and time, and deliberation, and repeated
examination, greatly tend to clear up doubts. For this reason, he who
goes to law with another should go first of all to his neighbours and
friends who know best the questions at issue.
And if he be unable to obtain from them a satisfactory decision, let him
have recourse to another court; and if the two courts cannot settle the
matter, let a third put an end to the suit.
Now the establishment of courts of justice may be regarded as a choice
of magistrates, for every magistrate must also be a judge of some
things; and the judge, though he be not a magistrate, yet in certain
respects is a very important magistrate on the day on which he is
determining a suit. Regarding then the judges also as magistrates, let
us say who are fit to be judges, and of what they are to be judges, and
how many of them are to judge in each suit. Let that be the supreme
tribunal which the litigants appoint in common for themselves, choosing
certain persons by agreement. And let there be two other tribunals: one
for private causes, when a citizen accuses another of wronging him and
wishes to get a decision; the other for public causes, in which some
citizen is of opinion that the public has been wronged by an individual,
and is willing to vindicate the common interests. And we must not forget
to mention how the judges are to be qualified, and who they are to be.
In the first place, let there be a tribunal open to all private persons
who are trying causes one against another for the third time, and let
this be composed as follows: All the officers of state, as well annual
as those holding office for a longer period, when the new year is about
to commence, in the month following after the summer solstice, on the
last day but one of the year, shall meet in some temple, and calling God
to witness, shall dedicate one judge from every magistracy to be their
firstfruits, choosing in each office him who seems to them to be the
best, and whom they deem likely to decide the causes of his
fellowcitizens during the ensuing year in the best and holiest manner.
And when the election is completed, a scrutiny shall be held in the
presence of the electors themselves, and if any one be rejected another
shall be chosen in the same manner. Those who have undergone the
scrutiny shall judge the causes of those who have declined the inferior
courts, and shall give their vote openly. The councillors and other
magistrates who have elected them shall be required to be hearers and
spectators of the causes; and any one else may be present who pleases.
If one man charges another with having intentionally decided wrong, let
him go to the guardians of the law and lay his accusation before them,
and he who is found guilty in such a case shall pay damages to the
injured party equal to half the injury; but if he shall appear to
deserve a greater penalty, the judges shall determine what additional
punishment he shall suffer, and how much more he ought to pay to the
public treasury, and to the party who brought the suit.
In the judgment of offences against the state, the people ought to
participate, for when any one wrongs the state all are wronged, and may
reasonably complain if they are not allowed to share in the decision.
Such causes ought to originate with the people, and the ought also to
have the final decision of them, but the trial of them shall take place
before three of the highest magistrates, upon whom the plaintiff and the
defendant shall agree; and if they are not able to come to an agreement
themselves, the council shall choose one of the two proposed. And in
private suits, too, as far as is possible, all should have a share; for
he who has no share in the administration of justice, is apt to imagine
that he has no share in the state at all. And for this reason there
shall be a court of law in every tribe, and the judges shall be chosen
by lot; — they shall give their decisions at once, and shall be
inaccessible to entreaties. The final judgment shall rest with that
court which, as we maintain, has been established in the most
incorruptible form of which human things admit: this shall be the court
established for those who are unable to get rid of their suits either in
the courts of neighbours or of the tribes.
Thus much of the courts of law, which, as I was saying, cannot be
precisely defined either as being or not being offices; a superficial
sketch has been given of them, in which some things have been told and
others omitted. For the right place of an exact statement of the laws
respecting suits, under their several heads, will be at the end of the
body of legislation; — let us then expect them at the end. Hitherto our
legislation has been chiefly occupied with the appointment of offices.
Perfect unity and exactness, extending to the whole and every particular
of political administration, cannot be attained to the full, until the
discussion shall have a beginning, middle, and end, and is complete in
every part. At present we have reached the election of magistrates, and
this may be regarded as a sufficient termination of what preceded. And
now there need no longer be any delay or hesitation in beginning the
work of legislation.
Cle. I like what you have said, Stranger — and I particularly like your
manner of tacking on the beginning of your new discourse to the end of
the former one.
Ath. Thus far, then, the old men’s rational pastime has gone off well.
Cle. You mean, I suppose, their serious and noble pursuit?
Ath. Perhaps; but I should like to know whether you and I are agreed
about a certain thing.
Cle. About what thing?
Ath. You know. the endless labour which painters expend upon their
pictures — they are always putting in or taking out colours, or whatever
be the term which artists employ; they seem as if they would never cease
touching up their works, which are always being made brighter and more
beautiful.
Cle. I know something of these matters from report, although I have
never had any great acquaintance with the art.
Ath. No matter; we may make use of the illustration notwithstanding:
Suppose that some one had a mind to paint a figure in the most beautiful
manner, in the hope that his work instead of losing would always improve
as time went on — do you not see that being a mortal, unless he leaves
some one to succeed him who will correct the flaws which time may
introduce, and be able to add what is left imperfect through the defect
of the artist, and who will further brighten up and improve the picture,
all his great labour will last but a short time?
Cle. True.
Ath. And is not the aim of the legislator similar? First, he desires
that his laws should be written down with all possible exactness; in the
second place, as time goes on and he has made an actual trial of his
decrees, will he not find omissions? Do you imagine that there ever was
a legislator so foolish as not to know that many things are necessarily
omitted, which some one coming after him must correct, if the
constitution and the order of government is not to deteriorate, but to
improve in the state which he has established?
Cle. Assuredly, that is the sort of thing which every one would desire.
Ath. And if any one possesses any means of accomplishing this by word or
deed, or has any way great or small by which he can teach a person to
understand how he can maintain and amend the laws, he should finish what
he has to say, and not leave the work incomplete.
Cle. By all means.
Ath. And is not this what you and I have to do at the present moment?
Cle. What have we to do?
Ath. As we are about to legislate and have chosen our guardians of the
law, and are ourselves in the evening of life, and they as compared with
us are young men, we ought not only to legislate for them, but to
endeavour to make them not only guardians of the law but legislators
themselves, as far as this is possible.
Cle. Certainly; if we can.
Ath. At any rate, we must do our best.
Cle. Of course.
Ath. We will say to them — O friends and saviours of our laws, in laying
down any law, there are many particulars which we shall omit, and this
cannot be helped; at the same time, we will do our utmost to describe
what is important, and will give an outline which you shall fill up. And
I will explain on what principle you are to act.
Megillus and Cleinias and I have often spoken to one another touching
these matters, and we are of opinion that we have spoken well. And we
hope that you will be of the same mind with us, and become our
disciples, and keep in view the things which in our united opinion the
legislator and guardian of the law ought to keep in view. There was one
main point about which we were agreedthat a man’s whole energies
throughout life should be devoted to the acquisition of the virtue
proper to a man, whether this was to be gained by study, or habit, or
some mode of acquisition, or desire, or opinion, or knowledge — and this
applies equally to men and women, old and young — the aim of all should
always be such as I have described; anything which may be an impediment,
the good man ought to show that he utterly disregards. And if at last
necessity plainly compels him to be an outlaw from his native land,
rather than bow his neck to the yoke of slavery and be ruled by
inferiors, and he has to fly, an exile he must be and endure all such
trials, rather than accept another form of government, which is likely
to make men worse. These are our original principles; and do you now,
fixing your eyes upon the standard of what a man and a citizen ought or
ought not to be, praise and blame the laws — blame those which have not
this power of making the citizen better, but embrace those which have;
and with gladness receive and live in them; bidding a long farewell to
other institutions which aim at goods, as they are termed, of a
different kind.
Let us proceed to another class of laws, beginning with their foundation
in religion. And we must first return to the number 5040 — the entire
number had, and has, a great many convenient divisions, and the number
of the tribes which was a twelfth part of the whole, being correctly
formed by 21 X 20 [5040/(21 X 20), i.e., 5040/420=12], also has them.
And not only is the whole number divisible by twelve, but also the
number of each tribe is divisible by twelve. Now every portion should be
regarded by us as a sacred gift of Heaven, corresponding to the months
and to the revolution of the universe. Every city has a guiding and
sacred principle given by nature, but in some the division or
distribution has been more right than in others, and has been more
sacred and fortunate.
In our opinion, nothing can be more right than the selection of the
number 5040, which may be divided by all numbers from one to twelve with
the single exception of eleven, and that admits of a very easy
correction; for if, turning to the dividend (5040), we deduct two
families, the defect in the division is cured. And the truth of this may
be easily proved when we have leisure. But for the present, trusting to
the mere assertion of this principle, let us divide the state; and
assigning to each portion some God or son of a God, let us give them
altars and sacred rites, and at the altars let us hold assemblies for
sacrifice twice in the month — twelve assemblies for the tribes, and
twelve for the city, according to their divisions; the first in honour
of the Gods and divine things, and the second to promote friendship and
“better acquaintance,” as the phrase is, and every sort of good
fellowship with one another. For people must be acquainted with those
into whose families and whom they marry and with those to whom they give
in marriage; in such matters, as far as possible, a man should deem it
all important to avoid a mistake, and with this serious purpose let
games be instituted in which youths and maidens shall dance together,
seeing one another and being seen naked, at a proper age, and on a
suitable occasion, not transgressing the rules of modesty.
The directors of choruses will be the superintendents and regulators of
these games, and they, together with the guardians of the law, will
legislate in any matters which we have omitted; for, as we said, where
there are numerous and minute details, the legislator must leave out
something. And the annual officers who have experience, and know what is
wanted, must make arrangements and improvements year by year, until such
enactments and provisions are sufficiently determined. A ten years
experience of sacrifices and dances, if extending to all particulars,
will be quite sufficient; and if the legislator be alive they shall
communicate with him, but if he be dead then the several officers shall
refer the omissions which come under their notice to the guardians of
the law, and correct them, until all is perfect; and from that time
there shall be no more change, and they shall establish and use the new
laws with the others which the legislator originally gave them, and of
which they are never, if they can help, to change aught; or, if some
necessity overtakes them, the magistrates must be called into counsel,
and the whole people, and they must go to all the oracles of the Gods;
and if they are all agreed, in that case they may make the change, but
if they are not agreed, by no manner of means, and any one who dissents
shall prevail, as the law ordains.
Whenever any one over twenty-five years of age, having seen and been
seen by others, believes himself to have found a marriage connection
which is to his mind, and suitable for the procreation of children, let
him marry if he be still under the age of five-and-thirty years; but let
him first hear how he ought to seek after what is suitable and
appropriate. For, as Cleinias says, every law should have a suitable
prelude.
Cle. You recollect at the right moment, Stranger, and do not miss the
opportunity which the argument affords of saying a word in season.
Ath. I thank you. We will say to him who is born of good parents — O my
son, you ought to make such a marriage as wise men would approve. Now
they would advise you neither to avoid a poor marriage, nor specially to
desire a rich one; but if other things are equal, always to honour
inferiors, and with them to form connections; — this will be for the
benefit of the city and of the families which are united; for the
equable and symmetrical tends infinitely more to virtue than the
unmixed. And he who is conscious of being too headstrong, and carried
away more than is fitting in all his actions, ought to desire to become
the relation of orderly parents; and he who is of the opposite temper
ought to seek the opposite alliance. Let there be one word concerning
all marriages: Every man shall follow, not after the marriage which is
most pleasing to himself, but after that which is most beneficial to the
state.
For somehow every one is by nature prone to that which is likest to
himself, and in this way the whole city becomes unequal in property and
in disposition; and hence there arise in most states the very results
which we least desire to happen. Now, to add to the law an express
provision, not only that the rich man shall not marry into the rich
family, nor the powerful into the family of the powerful, but that the
slower natures shall be compelled to enter into marriage with the
quicker, and the quicker with the slower, may awaken anger as well as
laughter in the minds of many; for there is a difficulty in perceiving
that the city ought to be well mingled like a cup, in which the
maddening wine is hot and fiery, but when chastened by a soberer God,
receives a fair associate and becomes an excellent and temperate drink.
Yet in marriage no one is able to see that the same result occurs.
Wherefore also the law must let alone such matters, but we should try to
charm the spirits of men into believing the equability of their
children’s disposition to be of more importance than equality in
excessive fortune when they marry; and him who is too desirous of making
a rich marriage we should endeavour to turn aside by reproaches, not,
however, by any compulsion of written law.
Let this then be our exhortation concerning marriage, and let us
remember what was said before — that a man should cling to immortality,
and leave behind him children’s children to be the servants of God in
his place for ever. All this and much more may be truly said by way of
prelude about the duty of marriage. But if a man will not listen and
remains unsocial and alien among his fellowcitizens, and is still
unmarried at thirty-five years of age, let him pay a yearly fine; — he
who of the highest class shall pay a fine of a hundred drachmae, and he
who is of the second dass a fine of seventy drachmae; the third class
shall pay sixty drachmae, and the fourth thirty drachmae, and let the
money be sacred to Here; he who does not pay the fine annually shall owe
ten times the sum, which the treasurer of the goddess shall exact; and
if he fails in doing so, let him be answerable and give an account of
the. money at his audit. He who refuses to marry shall be thus punished
in money, and also be deprived of all honour which the younger show to
the elder; let no young man voluntarily obey him, and if he attempt to
punish any one, let every one come to the rescue and defend the injured
person, and he who is present and does not come to the rescue, shall be
pronounced by the law to be a coward and a bad citizen. Of the marriage
portion I have already spoken; and again I say for the instruction of
poor men that he who neither gives nor receives a dowry on account of
poverty, has a compensation; for the citizens of our state are provided
with the necessaries of life, and wives will be less likely to be
insolent, and husbands to be mean and subservient to them on account of
property. And he who obeys this law will do a noble action; but he who
will not obey, and gives or receives more than fifty drachmae as the
price of the marriage garments if he be of the lowest, or more than a
mina, or a mina and-a-half, if he be of the third or second classes, or
two minae if he be of the highest class, shall owe to the public
treasury a similar sum, and that which is given or received shall be
sacred to Here and Zeus; and let the treasurers of these Gods exact the
money, as was said before about the unmarried — that the treasurers of
Here were to exact the money, or pay the fine themselves.
The betrothal by a father shall be valid in the first degree, that by a
grandfather in the second degree, and in the third degree, betrothal by
brothers who have the same father; but if there are none of these alive,
the betrothal by a mother shall be valid in like manner; in cases of
unexampled fatality, the next of kin and the guardians shall have
authority. What are to be the rites before marriages, or any other
sacred acts, relating either to future, present, or past marriages,
shall be referred to the interpreters; and he who follows their advice
may be satisfied. Touching the marriage festival, they shall assemble
not more than five male and five female friends of both families; and a
like number of members of the family of either sex, and no man shall
spend more than his means will allow; he who is of the richest class may
spend a mina — he who is of the second, half a mina, and in the same
proportion as the census of each decreases: all men shall praise him who
is obedient to the law; but he who is disobedient shall be punished by
the guardians of the law as a man wanting in true taste, and
uninstructed in the laws of bridal song. Drunkenness is always improper,
except at the festivals of the God who gave wine; and peculiarly
dangerous, when a man is engaged in the business of marriage; at such a
crisis of their lives a bride and bridegroom ought to have all their
wits about them — they ought to take care that their offspring may be
born of reasonable beings; for on what day or night Heaven will give
them increase, who can say? Moreover, they ought not to begetting
children when their bodies are dissipated by intoxication, but their
offspring should be compact and solid, quiet and compounded properly;
whereas the drunkard is all abroad in all his actions, and beside
himself both in body and soul.
Wherefore, also, the drunken man is bad and unsteady in sowing the seed
of increase, and is likely to beget offspring who will be unstable and
untrustworthy, and cannot be expected to walk straight either in body or
mind. Hence during the whole year and all his life long, and especially
while he is begetting children, ought to take care and not intentionally
do what is injurious to health, or what involves insolence and wrong;
for he cannot help leaving the impression of himself on the souls and
bodies of his offspring, and he begets children in every way inferior.
And especially on the day and night of marriage should a man abstain
from such things. For the beginning, which is also a God dwelling in
man, preserves all things, if it meet with proper respect from each
individual. He who marries is further to consider that one of the two
houses in the lot is the nest and nursery of his young, and there he is
to marry and make a home for himself and bring up his children, going
away from his father and mother. For in friendships there must be some
degree of desire, in order to cement and bind together diversities of
character; but excessive intercourse not having the desire which is
created by time, insensibly dissolves friendships from a feeling of
satiety; wherefore a man and his wife shall leave to his and her father
and mother their own dwellingplaces, and themselves go as to a colony
and dwell there, and visit and be visited by their parents; and they
shall beget and bring up children, handing on the torch of life from one
generation to another, and worshipping the Gods according to law for
ever.
In the next place, we have to consider what sort of property will be
most convenient. There is no difficulty either in understanding or
acquiring most kinds of property, but there is great difficulty in what
relates to slaves. And the reason is that we speak about them in a way
which is right and which is not right; for what we say about our slaves
is consistent and also inconsistent with our practice about them.
Megillus. I do not understand, Stranger, what you mean.
Ath. I am not surprised, Megillus, for the state of the Helots among the
Lacedaemonians is of all Hellenic forms of slavery the most controverted
and disputed about, some approving and some condemning it; there is less
dispute about the slavery which exists among the Heracleots, who have
subjugated the Mariandynians, and about the Thessalian Penestae. Looking
at these and the like examples, what ought we to do concerning property
in slaves? I made a remark, in passing, which naturally elicited a
question about my meaning from you. It was this: We know that all would
agree that we should have the best and most attached slaves whom we can
get. For many a man has found his slaves better in every way than
brethren or sons, and many times they have saved the lives and property
of their masters and their whole house — such tales are well known.
Meg. To be sure.
Ath. But may we not also say that the soul of the slave is utterly
corrupt, and that no man of sense ought to trust them? And the wisest of
our poets, speaking of Zeus, says: Far-seeing Zeus takes away half the
understanding of men whom the day of slavery subdues. Different persons
have got these two different notions of slaves in their minds — some of
them utterly distrust their servants, and, as if they were wild beasts,
chastise them with goads and whips, and make their souls three times, or
rather many times, as slavish as they were before; — and others do just
the opposite.
Meg. True.
Cle. Then what are we to do in our own country, Stranger, seeing that
there are, such differences in the treatment of slaves by their owners?
Ath. Well, Cleinias, there can be no doubt that man is a troublesome
animal, and therefore he is not very manageable, nor likely to become
so, when you attempt to introduce the necessary division, slave, and
freeman, and master.
Cle. That is obvious.
Ath. He is a troublesome piece of goods, as has been often shown by the
frequent revolts of the Messenians, and the great mischiefs which happen
in states having many slaves who speak the same language, and the
numerous robberies and lawless life of the Italian banditti, as they are
called. A man who considers all this is fairly at a loss. Two remedies
alone remain to us — not to have the slaves of the same country, nor if
possible, speaking the same language; in this way they will more easily
be held in subjection: secondly, we should tend them carefully, not only
out of regard to them, but yet more out of respect to ourselves. And the
right treatment of slaves is to behave properly to them, and to do to
them, if possible, even more justice than to those who are our equals;
for he who naturally and genuinely reverences justice, and hates
injustice, is discovered in his dealings with any class of men to whom
he can easily be unjust. And he who in regard to the natures and actions
of his slaves is undefiled by impiety and injustice, will best sow the
seeds of virtue in them; and this may be truly said of every master, and
tyrant, and of every other having authority in relation to his
inferiors. Slaves ought to be punished as they deserve, and not
admonished as if they were freemen, which will only make them conceited.
The language used to a servant ought always to be that of a command, and
we ought not to jest with them, whether they are males or females — this
is a foolish way which many people have of setting up their slaves, and
making the life of servitude more disagreeable both for them and for
their masters.
Cle. True.
Ath. Now that each of the citizens is provided, as far as possible, with
a sufficient number of suitable slaves who can help him in what he has
to do, we may next proceed to describe their dwellings.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. The city being new and hitherto uninhabited, care ought to be taken
of all the buildings, and the manner of building each of them, and also
of the temples and walls. These, Cleinias, were matters which properly
came before the marriages; but, as we are only talking, there is no
objection to changing the order. If, however, our plan of legislation is
ever to take effect, then the house shall precede the marriage if God so
will, and afterwards we will come to the regulations about marriage; but
at present we are only describing these matters in a general outline.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. The temples are to be placed all round the agora, and the whole
city built on the heights in a circle, for the sake of defence and for
the sake of purity. Near the temples are to be placed buildings for the
magistrates and the courts of law; in these plaintiff and defendant will
receive their due, and the places will be regarded as most holy, partly
because they have to do with the holy things: and partly because they
are the dwelling-places of holy Gods: and in them will be held the
courts in which cases of homicide and other trials of capital offenses
may fitly take place. As to the walls, Megillus, I agree with Sparta in
thinking that they should be allowed to sleep in the earth, and that we
should not attempt to disinter them; there is a poetical saying, which
is finely expressed, that “walls ought to be of steel and iron, and not
of earth; besides, how ridiculous of us to be sending out our young men
annually into the country to dig and to trench, and to keep off the
enemy by fortifications, under the idea that they are not to be allowed
to set foot in our territory, and then, that we should surround
ourselves with a wall, which, in the first place, is by no means
conducive to the health of cities, and is also apt to produce a certain
effeminacy in the minds of the inhabitants, inviting men to run thither
instead of repelling their enemies, and leading them to imagine that
their safety is due not to their keeping guard day and night, but that
when they are protected by walls and gates, then they may sleep in
safety; as if they were not meant to labour, and did not know that true
repose comes from labour, and that disgraceful indolence and a careless
temper of mind is only the renewal of trouble. But if men must have
walls, the private houses ought to be so arranged from the first that
the whole city may be one wall, having all the houses capable of defence
by reason of their uniformity and equality towards the streets. The form
of the city being that of a single dwelling will have an agreeable
aspect, and being easily guarded will be infinitely better for security.
Until the original building is completed, these should be the principal
objects of the inhabitants; and the wardens of the city should
superintend the work, and should impose a fine on him who is negligent;
and in all that relates to the city they should have a care of
cleanliness, and not allow a private person to encroach upon any public
property either by buildings or excavations. Further, they ought to take
care that the rains from heaven flow off easily, and of any other
matters which may have to be administered either within or without the
city. The guardians of the law shall pass any further enactments which
their experience may show to be necessary, and supply any other points
in which the law may be deficient. And now that these matters, and the
buildings about the agora, and the gymnasia, and places of instruction,
and theatres, are all ready and waiting for scholars and spectators, let
us proceed to the subjects which follow marriage in the order of
legislation.
Cle. By all means.
Ath. Assuming that marriages exist already, Cleinias, the mode of life
during the year after marriage, before children are born, will follow
next in order. In what way bride and bridegroom ought to live in a city
which is to be superior to other cities, is a matter not at all easy for
us to determine. There have been many difficulties already, but this
will be the greatest of them, and the most disagreeable to the many.
Still I cannot but say what appears to me to be right and true,
Cleinias.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. He who imagines that he can give laws for the public conduct of
states, while he leaves the private life of citizens wholly to take care
of itself; who thinks that individuals may pass the day as they please,
and that there is no necessity of order in all things; he, I say, who
gives up the control of their private lives, and supposes that they will
conform to law in their common and public life, is making a great
mistake. Why have I made this remark? Why, because I am going to enact
that the bridegrooms should live at the common tables, just as they did
before marriage. This was a singularity when first enacted by the
legislator in your parts of the world, Megillus and Cleinias, as I
should suppose, on the occasion of some war or other similar danger,
which caused the passing of the law, and which would be likely to occur
in thinly-peopled places, and in times of pressure. But when men had
once tried and been accustomed to a common table, experience showed that
the institution greatly conduced to security; and in some such manner
the custom of having common tables arose among you.
Cle. Likely enough.
Ath. I said that there may have been singularity and danger in imposing
such a custom at first, but that now there is not the same difficulty.
There is, however, another institution which is the natural sequel to
this, and would be excellent, if it existed anywhere, but at present it
does not. The institution of which I am about to speak is not easily
described or executed; and would be like the legislator “combing wool
into the fire,” as people say, or performing any other impossible and
useless feat.
Cle. What is the cause, Stranger, of this extreme hesitation?
Ath. You shall hear without any fruitless loss of time. That which has
law and order in a state is the cause of every good, but that which is
disordered or ill-ordered is often the ruin of that which is
wellordered; and at this point the argument is now waiting. For with
you, Cleinias and Megillus, the common tables of men are, as I said, a
heaven-born and admirable institution, but you are mistaken in leaving
the women unregulated by law. They have no similar institution of public
tables in the light of day, and just that part of the human race which
is by nature prone to secrecy and stealth on account of their weakness —
I mean the female sex — has been left without regulation by the
legislator, which is a great mistake. And, in consequence of this
neglect, many things have grown lax among you, which might have been far
better, if they had been only regulated by law; for the neglect of
regulations about women may not only be regarded as a neglect of half
the entire matter, but in proportion as woman’s nature is inferior to
that of men in capacity for virtue, in that degree the consequence of
such neglect is more than twice as important. The careful consideration
of this matter, and the arranging and ordering on a common principle of
all our institutions relating both to men and women, greatly conduces to
the happiness of the state. But at present, such is the unfortunate
condition of mankind, that no man of sense will even venture to speak of
common tables in places and cities in which they have never been
established at all; and how can any one avoid being utterly ridiculous,
who attempts to compel women to show in public how much they eat and
drink? There is nothing at which the sex is more likely to take offence.
For women are accustomed to creep into dark places, and when dragged out
into the light they will exert their utmost powers of resistance, and be
far too much for the legislator. And therefore, as I said before, in
most places they will not endure to have the truth spoken without
raising a tremendous outcry, but in this state perhaps they may. And if
we may assume that our whole discussion about the state has not been
mere idle talk, I should like to prove to you, if you will consent to
listen, that this institution is good and proper; but if you had rather
not, I will refrain.
Cle. There is nothing which we should both of us like better, Stranger,
than to hear what you have to say.
Ath. Very good; and you must not be surprised if I go back a little, for
we have plenty of leisure, and there is nothing to prevent us from
considering in every point of view the subject of law.
Cle. True.
Ath. Then let us return once more to what we were saying at first. Every
man should understand that the human race either had no beginning at
all, and will never have an end, but always will be and has been; or
that it began an immense while ago.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Well, and have there not been constitutions and destructions of
states, and all sorts of pursuits both orderly and disorderly, and
diverse desires of meats and drinks always, and in all the world, and
all sorts of changes of the seasons in which animals may be expected to
have undergone innumerable transformations of themselves?
Cle. No doubt.
Ath. And may we not suppose that vines appeared, which had previously no
existence, and also olives, and the gifts of Demeter and her daughter,
of which one Triptolemus was the minister, and that, before these
existed, animals took to devouring each other as they do still?
Cle. True.
Ath. Again, the practice of men sacrificing one another still exists
among many nations; while, on the other hand, we hear of other human
beings who did not even venture to taste the flesh of a cow and had no
animal sacrifices, but only cakes and fruits dipped in honey, and
similar pure offerings, but no flesh of animals; from these they
abstained under the idea that they ought not to eat them, and might not
stain the altars of the Gods with blood. For in those days men are said
to have lived a sort of Orphic life, having the use of all lifeless
things, but abstaining from all living things.
Cle. Such has been the constant tradition, and is very likely true.
Ath. Some one might say to us, What is the drift of all this?
Cle. A very pertinent question, Stranger.
Ath. And therefore I will endeavour, Cleinias, if I can, to draw the
natural inference.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. I see that among men all things depend upon three wants and
desires, of which the end is virtue, if they are rightly led by them, or
the opposite if wrongly. Now these are eating and drinking, which begin
at birth — every animal has a natural desire for them, and is violently
excited, and rebels against him who says that he must not satisfy all
his pleasures and appetites, and get rid of all the corresponding pains
— and the third and greatest and sharpest want and desire breaks out
last, and is the fire of sexual lust, which kindles in men every species
of wantonness and madness. And these three disorders we must endeavour
to master by the three great principles of fear and law and right
reason; turning them away from that which is called pleasantest to the
best, using the Muses and the Gods who preside over contests to
extinguish their increase and influx. But to return: After marriage let
us speak of the birth of children, and after their birth of their
nurture and education. In the course of discussion the several laws will
be perfected, and we shall at last arrive at the common tables. Whether
such associations are to be confined to men, or extended to women also,
we shall see better when we approach and take a nearer view of them; and
we may then determine what previous institutions are required and will
have to precede them. As I said before we shall see them more in detail,
and shall be better able to lay down the laws which are proper or suited
to them.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Let us keep in mind the words which have now been spoken; for
hereafter there may be need of them.
Cle. What do you bid us keep in mind?
Ath. That which we comprehended under the three words — first, eating,
secondly, drinking, thirdly, the excitement of love.
Cle. We shall be sure to remember, Stranger.
Ath. Very good. Then let us now proceed to marriage, and teach persons
in what way they shall beget children, threatening them, if they
disobey, with the terrors of the law.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. The bride and bridegroom should consider that they are to produce
for the state the best and fairest specimens of children which they can.
Now all men who are associated any action always succeed when they
attend and give their mind to what they are doing, but when they do not
give their mind or have no mind, they fail; wherefore let the bridegroom
give his mind to the bride and to the begetting of children, and the
bride in like manner give her mind to the bridegroom, and particularly
at the time when their children are not yet born. And let the women whom
we have chosen be the overseers of such matters, and let them in
whatever number, large or small, and at whatever time the magistrates
may command, assemble every day in the temple of Eileithyia during a
third part of the day, and being there assembled, let them inform one
another of any one whom they see, whether man or woman, of those who are
begetting children, disregarding the ordinances given at the time when
the nuptial sacrifices and ceremonies were performed. Let the begetting
of children and the supervision of those who are begetting them continue
ten years and no longer, during the time when marriage is fruitful. But
if any continue without children up to this time, let them take counsel
with their kindred and with the women holding the office of overseer and
be divorced for their mutual benefit. If, however, any dispute arises
about what is proper and for the interest of either party, they shall
choose ten of the guardians of the law and abide by their permission and
appointment.
The women who preside over these matters shall enter into the houses of
the young, and partly by admonitions and partly by threats make them
give over their folly and error: if they persist, let the women go and
tell the guardians of the law, and the guardians shall prevent them. But
if they too cannot prevent them, they shall bring the matter before the
people; and let them write up their names and make oath that they cannot
reform such and such an one; and let him who is thus written up, if he
cannot in a court of law convict those who have inscribed his name, be
deprived of the privileges of a citizen in the following respects: let
him not go to weddings nor to the thanksgivings after the birth of
children; and if he go, let any one who pleases strike him with
impunity; and let the same regulations hold about women: let not a woman
be allowed to appear abroad, or receive honour, or go to nuptial and
birthday festivals, if she in like manner be written up as acting
disorderly and cannot obtain a verdict. And if, when they themselves
have done begetting children according to the law, a man or woman have
connection with another man or woman who are still begetting children,
let the same penalties be inflicted upon them as upon those who are
still having a family; and when the time for procreation has passed let
the man or woman who refrains in such matters be held in esteem, and let
those who do not refrain be held in the contrary of esteem — that is to
say, disesteem. Now, if the greater part of mankind behave modestly, the
enactments of law may be left to slumber; but, if they are disorderly,
the enactments having been passed, let them be carried into execution.
To every man the first year is the beginning of life, and the time of
birth ought to be written down in the temples of their fathers as the
beginning of existence to every child, whether boy or girl. Let every
phratria have inscribed on a whited wall the names of the successive
archons by whom the years are reckoned. And near to them let the living
members of the phratria be inscribed, and when they depart life let them
be erased. The limit of marriageable ages for a woman shall be from
sixteen to twenty years at the longestfor a man, from thirty to
thirty-five years; and let a woman hold office at forty, and a man at
thirty years. Let a man go out to war from twenty to sixty years, and
for a woman, if there appear any need to make use of her in military
service, let the time of service be after she shall have brought forth
children up to fifty years of age; and let regard be had to what is
possible and suitable to each.
BOOK VII
And now, assuming children of both sexes to have been born, it will be
proper for us to consider, in the next place, their nurture and
education; this cannot be left altogether unnoticed, and yet may be
thought a subject fitted rather for precept and admonition than for law.
In private life there are many little things, not always apparent,
arising out of the pleasures and pains and desires of individuals, which
run counter to the intention of the legislator, and make the characters
of the citizens various and dissimilar: this is an evil in states; for
by reason of their smallness and frequent occurrence, there would be an
unseemliness and want of propriety in making them penal by law; and if
made penal, they are the destruction of the written law because mankind
get the habit of frequently transgressing the law in small matters. The
result is that you cannot legislate about them, and still less can you
be silent. I speak somewhat darkly, but I shall endeavour also to bring
my wares into the light of day, for I acknowledge that at present there
is a want of clearness in what I am saying.
Cleinias. Very true.
Athenian Stranger. Am I not right in maintaining that a good education
is that which tends most, to the improvement of mind and body?
Cle. Undoubtedly.
Ath. And nothing can be plainer than that the fairest bodies are those
which grow up from infancy in the best and straightest manner?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And do we not further observe that the first shoot of every living
thing is by far the greatest and fullest? Many will even contend that a
man at twenty-five does not reach twice the height which he attained at
five.
Cle. True.
Ath. Well, and is not rapid growth without proper and abundant exercise
the source endless evils in the body?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And the body should have the most exercise when it receives most
nourishment?
Cle. But, Stranger, are we to impose this great amount of exercise upon
newly-born infants?
Ath. Nay, rather on the bodies of infants still unborn.
Cle. What do you mean, my good sir? In the process of gestation?
Ath. Exactly. I am not at all surprised that you have never heard of
this very peculiar sort of gymnastic applied to such little creatures,
which, although strange, I will endeavour to explain to you.
Cle. By all means.
Ath. The practice is more easy for us to understand than for you, by
reason of certain amusements which are carried to excess by us at
Athens. Not only boys, but often older persons, are in the habit of
keeping quails and cocks, which they train to fight one another.
And they are far from thinking that the contests in which they stir them
up to fight with one another are sufficient exercise; for, in addition
to this, they carry them about tucked beneath their armpits, holding the
smaller birds in their hands, the larger under their arms, and go for a
walk of a great many miles for the sake of health, that is to say, not
their own, health, but the health of the birds; whereby they prove to
any intelligent person, that all bodies are benefited by shakings and
movements, when they are moved without weariness, whether motion
proceeds from themselves, or is caused by a swing, or at sea, or on
horseback, or by other bodies in whatever way moving, and that thus
gaining the mastery over food and drink, they are able to impart beauty
and health and strength. But admitting all this, what follows? Shall we
make a ridiculous law that the pregnant woman shall walk about and
fashion the embryo within as we fashion wax before it hardens, and after
birth swathe the infant for two years? Suppose that we compel nurses,
under penalty of a legal fine, to be always carrying the children
somewhere or other, either to the temples, or into the country, or to
their relations, houses, until they are well able to stand, and to take
care that their limbs are not distorted by leaning on them when they are
too young — they should continue to carry them until the infant has
completed its third year; the nurses should be strong, and there should
be more than one of them. Shall these be our rules, and shall we impose
a penalty for the neglect of them? No, no; the penalty of which we were
speaking will fall upon our own heads more than enough.
Cle. What penalty?
Ath. Ridicule, and the difficulty of getting the feminine and
servant-like dispositions of the nurses to comply.
Cle. Then why was there any need to speak of the matter at all?
Ath. The reason is that masters and freemen in states, when they hear of
it, are very likely to arrive at a true conviction that without due
regulation of private life in cities, stability in the laying down of
laws is hardly to be expected; and he who makes this reflection may
himself adopt the laws just now mentioned, and, adopting them, may order
his house and state well and be happy.
Cle. Likely enough.
Ath. And therefore let us proceed with our legislation until we have
determined the exercises which are suited to the souls of young
children, in the same manner in which we have begun to go through the
rules relating to their bodies.
Cle. By all means.
Ath. Let us assume, then, as a first principle in relation both to the
body and soul of very young creatures, that nursing and moving about by
day and night is good for them all, and that the younger they are, the
more they will need it; infants should live, if that were possible, as
if they were always rocking at sea. This is the lesson which we may
gather from the experience of nurses, and likewise from the use of the
remedy of motion in the rites of the Corybantes; for when mothers want
their restless children to go to sleep they do not employ rest, but, on
the contrary, motion — rocking them in their arms; nor do they give them
silence, but they sing to them and lap them in sweet strains; and the
Bacchic women are cured of their frenzy in the same manner by the use of
the dance and of music.
Cle. Well, Stranger, and what is the reason of this?
Ath. The reason is obvious.
Cle. What?
Ath. The affection both of the Bacchantes and of the children is an
emotion of fear, which springs out of an evil habit of the soul. And
when some one applies external agitation to affections of this sort, the
motion coming from without gets the better of the terrible and violent
internal one, and produces a peace and calm in the soul, and quiets the
restless palpitation of the heart, which is a thing much to be desired,
sending the children to sleep, and making the Bacchantes, although they
remain awake, to dance to the pipe with the help of the Gods to whom
they offer acceptable sacrifices, and producing in them a sound mind,
which takes the place of their frenzy. And, to express what I mean in a
word, there is a good deal to be said in favour of this treatment.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. But if fear has such a power we ought to infer from these facts,
that every soul which from youth upward has been familiar with fears,
will be made more liable to fear, and every one will allow that this is
the way to form a habit of cowardice and not of courage.
Cle. No doubt.
Ath. And, on the other hand, the habit of overcoming, from our youth
upwards, the fears and terrors which beset us, may be said to be an
exercise of courage.
Cle. True.
Ath. And we may say that the use of exercise and motion in the earliest
years of life greatly contributes to create a part of virtue in the
soul.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. Further, a cheerful temper, or the reverse, may be regarded as
having much to do with high spirit on the one hand, or with cowardice on
the other.
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. Then now we must endeavour to show how and to what extent we may,
if we please, without difficulty implant either character in the young.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. There is a common opinion, that luxury makes the disposition of
youth discontented and irascible and vehemently excited by trifles; that
on the other hand excessive and savage servitude makes men mean and
abject, and haters of their kind, and therefore makes them undesirable
associates.
Cle. But how must the state educate those who do not as yet understand
the language of the country, and are therefore incapable of appreciating
any sort of instruction?
Ath. I will tell you how: Every animal that is born is wont to utter
some cry, and this is especially the case with man, and he is also
affected with the inclination to weep more than any other animal.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. Do not nurses, when they want to know what an infant desires, judge
by these signs? — when anything is brought to the infant and he is
silent, then he is supposed to be pleased, but, when he weeps and cries
out, then he is not pleased. For tears and cries are the inauspicious
signs by which children show what they love and hate. Now the time which
is thus spent is no less than three years, and is a very considerable
portion of life to be passed ill or well.
Cle. True.
Ath. Does not the discontented and ungracious nature appear to you to be
full of lamentations and sorrows more than a good man ought to be?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Well, but if during these three years every possible care were
taken that our nursling should have as little of sorrow and fear, and in
general of pain as was possible, might we not expect in early childhood
to make his soul more gentle and cheerful?
Cle. To be sure, Stranger — more especially if we could procure him a
variety of pleasures.
Ath. There I can no longer agree, Cleinias: you amaze me. To bring him
up in such a way would be his utter ruin; for the beginning is always
the most critical part of education. Let us see whether I am right.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. The point about which you and I differ is of great importance, and
I hope that you, Megillus, will help to decide between us. For I
maintain that the true life should neither seek for pleasures, nor, on
the other hand, entirely avoid pains, but should embrace the middle
state, which I just spoke of as gentle and benign, and is a state which
we by some divine presage and inspiration rightly ascribe to God. Now, I
say, he among men, too, who would be divine ought to pursue after this
mean habit — he should not rush headlong into pleasures, for he will not
be free from pains; nor should we allow any one, young or old, male or
female, to be thus given any more than ourselves, and least of all the
newly-born infant, for in infancy more than at any other time the
character is engrained by habit. Nay, more, if I were not afraid of
appearing to be ridiculous, I would say that a woman during her year of
pregnancy should of all women be most carefully tended, and kept from
violent or excessive pleasures and pains, and should at that time
cultivate gentleness and benevolence and kindness.
Cle. You need not, ask Megillus, Stranger, which of us has most truly
spoken; for I myself agree that all men ought to avoid the life of
unmingled pain or pleasure, and pursue always a middle course. And
having spoken well, may I add that you have been well answered?
Ath. Very good, Cleinias; and now let us all three consider a further
point.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. That all the matters which we are now describing are commonly
called by the general name of unwritten customs, and what are termed the
laws of our ancestors are all of similar nature. And the reflection
which lately arose in our minds, that we can neither call these things
laws, nor yet leave them unmentioned, is justified; for they are the
bonds of the whole state, and come in between the written laws which are
or are hereafter to be laid down; they are just ancestral customs of
great antiquity, which, if they are rightly ordered and made habitual,
shield and preserve the previously existing written law; but if they
depart from right and fall into disorder, then they are like the props
of builders which slip away out of their Place and cause a universal
ruin — one part drags another down, and the fair super-structure falls
because the old foundations are undermined. Reflecting upon this,
Cleinias, you ought to bind together the new state in every possible
way, omitting nothing, whether great or small, of what are called laws
or manners or pursuits, for by these means a city is bound together, and
all these things are only lasting when they depend upon one another;
and, therefore, we must not wonder if we find that many apparently
trifling customs or usages come pouring in and lengthening out our laws.
Cle. Very true: we are disposed to agree with you.
Ath. Up to the age of three years, whether of boy or girl, if a person
strictly carries out our previous regulations and makes them a principal
aim, he will do much for the advantage of the young creatures. But at
three, four, five, and even six years the childish nature will require
sports; now is the time to get rid of self-will in him, punishing him,
but not so as to disgrace him. We were saying about slaves, that we
ought neither to add insult to punishment so as to anger them, nor yet
to leave them unpunished lest they become self-willed; and a like rule
is to be observed in the case of the free-born. Children at that age
have certain natural modes of amusement which they find out for
themselves when they meet.
And all the children who are between the ages of three and six ought to
meet at the temples the villages, the several families of a village
uniting on one spot. The nurses are to see that the children behave
properly and orderly — they themselves and all their companies are to be
under the control of twelve matrons, one for each company, who are
annually selected to inspect them from the women previously mentioned,
[i.e., the women who have authority over marriage], whom the guardians
of the law appoint. These matrons shall be chosen by the women who have
authority over marriage, one out of each tribe; all are to be of the
same age; and let each of them, as soon as she is appointed, hold office
and go to the temples every day, punishing all offenders, male or
female, who are slaves or strangers, by the help of some of the public
slaves; but if any citizen disputes the punishment, let her bring him
before the wardens of the city; or, if there be no dispute, let her
punish him herself. After the age of six years the time has arrived for
the separation of the sexes — let boys live with boys, and girls in like
manner with girls. Now they must begin to learn — the boys going to
teachers of horsemanship and the use of the bow, the javelin, and sling,
and the girls too, if they do not object, at any rate until they know
how to manage these weapons, and especially how to handle heavy arms;
for I may note, that the practice which now prevails is almost
universally misunderstood.
Cle. In what respect?
Ath. In that the right and left hand are supposed to be by nature
differently suited for our various uses of them; whereas no difference
is found in the use of the feet and the lower limbs; but in the use of
the hands we are, as it were, maimed by the folly of nurses and mothers;
for although our several limbs are by nature balanced, we create a
difference in them by bad habit. In some cases this is of no
consequence, as, for example, when we hold the lyre in the left hand,
and the plectrum in the right, but it is downright folly to make the
same distinction in other cases. The custom of the Scythians proves our
error; for they not only hold the bow from them with the left hand and
draw the arrow to them with their right, but use either hand for both
purposes. And there are many similar examples in charioteering and other
things, from which we may learn that those who make the left side weaker
than the right act contrary to nature. In the case of the plectrum,
which is of horn only, and similar instruments, as I was saying, it is
of no consequence, but makes a great difference, and may be of very
great importance to the warrior who has to use iron weapons, bows and
javelins, and the like; above all, when in heavy armour, he has to fight
against heavy armour. And there is a very great difference between one
who has learnt and one who has not, and between one who has been trained
in gymnastic exercises and one who has not been. For as he who is
perfectly skilled in the Pancratium or boxing or wrestling, is not
unable to fight from his left side, and does not limp and draggle in
confusion when his opponent makes him change his position, so in
heavy-armed fighting, and in all other things if I am not mistaken, the
like holds — he who has these double powers of attack and defence ought
not in any case to leave them either unused or untrained, if he can
help; and if a person had the nature of Geryon or Briareus he ought to
be able with his hundred hands to throw a hundred darts. Now, the
magistrates, male and female, should see to all these things, the women
superintending the nursing and amusements of the children, and the men
superintending their education, that all of them, boys and girls alike,
may be sound hand and foot, and may not, if they can help, spoil the
gifts of nature by bad habits.
Education has two branches — one of gymnastic, which is concerned with
the body, and the other of music, which is designed for the improvement
of the soul. And gymnastic has also two branches — dancing and
wrestling; and one sort of dancing imitates musical recitation, and aims
at preserving dignity and freedom, the other aims at producing health,
agility, and beauty in the limbs and parts of the body, giving the
proper flexion and extension to each of them, a harmonious motion being
diffused everywhere, and forming a suitable accompaniment to the dance.
As regards wrestling, the tricks which Antaeus and Cercyon devised in
their systems out of a vain spirit of competition, or the tricks of
boxing which Epeius or Amycus invented, are useless and unsuitable for
war, and do not deserve to have much said about them; but the art of
wrestling erect and keeping free the neck and hands and sides, working
with energy and constancy, with a composed strength, and for the sake of
health — these are always useful, and are not to be neglected, but to be
enjoined alike on masters and scholars, when we reach that part of
legislation; and we will desire the one to give their instructions
freely, and the others to receive them thankfully. Nor, again, must we
omit suitable imitations of war in our choruses; here in Crete you have
the armed dances if the Curetes, and the Lacedaemonians have those of
the Dioscuri. And our virgin lady, delighting in the amusement of the
dance, thought it not fit to amuse herself with empty hands; she must be
clothed in a complete suit of armour, and in this attire go through the
dance; and youths and maidens should in every respect imitate her,
esteeming highly the favour of the Goddess, both with a view to the
necessities of war, and to festive occasions: it will be right also for
the boys, until such time as they go out to war, to make processions and
supplications to all the Gods in goodly array, armed and on horseback,
in dances, and marches, fast or slow, offering up prayers to the Gods
and to the sons of Gods; and also engaging in contests and preludes of
contests, if at all, with these objects: For these sorts of exercises,
and no others, are useful both in peace and war, and are beneficial
alike to states and to private houses. But other labours and sports and
exercises of the body are unworthy of freemen, O Megillus and Cleinias.
I have now completely described the kind of gymnastic which I said at
first ought to be described; if you know of any better, will you
communicate your thoughts?
Cle. It is not easy, Stranger, to put aside these principles of
gymnastic and wrestling and to enunciate better ones.
Ath. Now we must say what has yet to be said about the gifts of the
Muses and of Apollo: before, we fancied that we had said all, and that
gymnastic alone remained; but now we see clearly what points have been
omitted, and should be first proclaimed; of these, then, let us proceed
to speak.
Cle. By all means.
Ath. Let me tell you once more — although you have heard me say the same
before that caution must be always exercised, both by the speaker and by
the hearer, about anything that is very singular and unusual. For my
tale is one, which many a man would be afraid to tell, and yet I have a
confidence which makes me go on.
Cle. What have you to say, Stranger?
Ath. I say that in states generally no one has observed that the plays
of childhood have a great deal to do with the permanence or want of
permanence in legislation. For when plays are ordered with a view to
children having the same plays, and amusing themselves after the same
manner, and finding delight in the same playthings, the more solemn
institutions of the state are allowed to remain undisturbed. Whereas if
sports are disturbed, and innovations are made in them, and they
constantly change, and the young never speak of their having the same
likings, or the same established notions of good and bad taste, either
in the bearing of their bodies or in their dress, but he who devises
something new and out of the way in figures and colours and the like is
held in special honour, we may truly say that no greater evil can happen
in a state; for he who changes the sports is secretly changing the
manners of the young, and making the old to be dishonoured among them
and the new to be honoured. And I affirm that there is nothing which is
a greater injury to all states than saying or thinking thus. Will you
hear me tell how great I deem the evil to be?
Cle. You mean the evil of blaming antiquity in states?
Ath. Exactly.
Cle. If you are speaking of that, you will find in us hearers who are
disposed to receive what you say not unfavourably but most favourably.
Ath. I should expect so.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. Well, then, let us give all the greater heed to one another’s
words.
The argument affirms that any change whatever except from evil is the
most dangerous of all things; this is true in the case of the seasons
and of the winds, in the management of our bodies and the habits of our
minds — true of all things except, as I said before, of the bad. He who
looks at the constitution of individuals accustomed to eat any sort of
meat, or drink any drink, or to do any work which they can get, may see
that they are at first disordered by them, but afterwards, as time goes
on, their bodies grow adapted to them, and they learn to know and like
variety, and have good health and enjoyment of life; and if ever
afterwards they are confined again to a superior diet, at first they are
troubled with disorders, and with difficulty become habituated to their
new food. A similar principle we may imagine to hold good about the
minds of men and the natures of their souls. For when they have been
brought up in certain laws, which by some Divine Providence have
remained unchanged during long ages, so that no one has any memory or
tradition of their ever having been otherwise than they are, then every
one is afraid and ashamed to change that which is established. The
legislator must somehow find a way of implanting this reverence for
antiquity, and I would propose the following way: People are apt to
fancy, as I was saying before, that when the plays of children are
altered they are merely plays, not seeing that the most serious and
detrimental consequences arise out of the change; and they readily
comply with the child’s wishes instead of deterring him, not considering
that these children who make innovations in their games, when they grow
up to be men, will be different from the last generation of children,
and, being different, will desire a different sort of life, and under
the influence of this desire will want other institutions and laws; and
no one of them reflects that there will follow what I just now called
the greatest of evils to states. Changes in bodily fashions are no such
serious evils, but frequent changes in the praise and censure of manners
are the greatest of evils, and require the utmost prevision.
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. And now do we still hold to our former assertion, that rhythms and
music in general are imitations of good and evil characters in men? What
say you?
Cle. That is the only doctrine which we can admit.
Ath. Must we not, then, try in every possible way to prevent our youth
from even desiring to imitate new modes either in dance or song? nor
must any one be allowed to offer them varieties of pleasures.
Cle. Most true.
Ath. Can any of us imagine a better mode of effecting this object than
that of the Egyptians?
Cle. What is their method?
Ath. To consecrate every sort of dance or melody. First we should ordain
festivals — calculating for the year what they ought to be, and at what
time, and in honour of what Gods, sons of Gods, and heroes they ought to
be celebrated; and, in the next place, what hymns ought to be sung at
the several sacrifices, and with what dances the particular festival is
to be honoured. This has to be arranged at first by certain persons,
and, when arranged, the whole assembly of the citizens are to offer
sacrifices and libations to the Fates and all the other Gods, and to
consecrate the several odes to gods and heroes: and if any one offers
any other hymns or dances to any one of the Gods, the priests and
priestesses, acting in concert with the guardians of the law, shall,
with the sanction of religion and the law, exclude him, and he who is
excluded, if he do not submit, shall be liable all his life long to have
a suit of impiety brought against him by any one who likes.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. In the consideration of this subject, let us remember what is due
to ourselves.
Cle. To what are you referring?
Ath. I mean that any young man, and much more any old one, when he sees
or hears anything strange or unaccustomed, does not at once run to
embrace the paradox, but he stands considering, like a person who is at
a place where three paths meet, and does not very well know his way — he
may be alone or he may be walking with others, and he will say to
himself and them, “Which is the way?” and will not move forward until he
is satisfied that he is going right. And this is what we must do in the
present instance: A strange discussion on the subject of law has arisen,
which requires the utmost consideration, and we should not at our age be
too ready to speak about such great matters, or be confident that we can
say anything certain all in a moment.
Cle. Most true.
Ath. Then we will allow time for reflection, and decide when we have
given the subject sufficient consideration. But that we may not be
hindered from completing the natural arrangement of our laws, let us
proceed to the conclusion of them in due order; for very possibly, if
God will, the exposition of them, when completed, may throw light on our
present perplexity.
Cle. Excellent, Stranger; let us do as you propose.
Ath. Let us then affirm the paradox that strains of music are our laws
(nomoi), and this latter being the name which the ancients gave to lyric
songs, they probably would not have very much objected to our proposed
application of the word. Some one, either asleep or awake, must have had
a dreamy suspicion of their nature. And let our decree be as follows: No
one in singing or dancing shall offend against public and consecrated
models, and the general fashion among the youth, any more than he would
offend against any other law. And he who observes this law shall be
blameless; but he who is disobedient, as I was saying, shall be punished
by the guardians of the laws, and by the priests and priestesses.
Suppose that we imagine this to be our law.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Can any one who makes such laws escape ridicule? Let us see. I
think that our only safety will be in first framing certain models for
composers. One of these models shall be as follows: If when a sacrifice
is going on, and the victims are being burnt according to law — if, I
say, any one who may be a son or brother, standing by another at the
altar and over the victims, horribly blasphemes, will not his words
inspire despondency and evil omens and forebodings in the mind of his
father and of his other kinsmen?
Cle. Of course.
Ath. And this is just what takes place in almost all our cities. A
magistrate offers a public sacrifice, and there come in not one but many
choruses, who take up a position a little way from the altar, and from
time to time pour forth all sorts of horrible blasphemies on the sacred
rites, exciting the souls of the audience with words and rhythms and
melodies most sorrowful to hear; and he who at the moment when the city
is offering sacrifice makes the citizens weep most, carries away the
palm of victory. Now, ought we not to forbid such strains as these? And
if ever our citizens must hear such lamentations, then on some unblest
and inauspicious day let there be choruses of foreign and hired
minstrels, like those hirelings who accompany the departed at funerals
with barbarous Carian chants. That is the sort of thing which will be
appropriate if we have such strains at all; and let the apparel of the
singers be, not circlets and ornaments of gold, but the reverse. Enough
of all this.
I will simply ask once more whether we shall lay down as one of our
principles of song
Cle. What?
Ath. That we should avoid every word of evil omen; let that kind of song
which is of good omen be heard everywhere and always in our state. I
need hardly ask again, but shall assume that you agree with me.
Cle. By all means; that law is approved by the suffrages of us all.
Ath. But what shall be our next musical law or type? Ought not prayers
to be offered up to the Gods when we sacrifice?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And our third law, if I am not mistaken, will be to the effect that
our poets, understanding prayers to be requests which we make to the
Gods, will take especial heed that they do not by mistake ask for evil
instead of good. To make such a prayer would surely be too ridiculous.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Were we not a little while ago quite convinced that no silver or
golden Plutus should dwell in our state?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. And what has it been the object of our argument to show? Did we not
imply that the poets are not always quite capable of knowing what is
good or evil? And if one of them utters a mistaken prayer in song or
words, he will make our citizens pray for the opposite of what is good
in matters of the highest import; than which, as I was saying, there can
be few greater mistakes. Shall we then propose as one of our laws and
models relating to the Muses.
Cle. What? — will you explain the law more precisely?
Ath. Shall we make a law that the poet shall compose nothing contrary to
the ideas of the lawful, or just, or beautiful, or good, which are
allowed in the state? nor shall he be permitted to communicate his
compositions to any private individuals, until he shall have shown them
to the appointed judges and the guardians of the law, and they are
satisfied with them. As to the persons whom we appoint to be our
legislators about music and as to the director of education, these have
been already indicated. Once more then, as I have asked more than once,
shall this be our third law, and type, and model — What do you say?
Cle. Let it be so, by all means.
Ath. Then it will be proper to have hymns and praises of the Gods,
intermingled with prayers; and after the Gods prayers and praises should
be offered in like manner to demigods and heroes, suitable to their
several characters.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. In the next place there will be no objection to a law, that
citizens who are departed and have done good and energetic deeds, either
with their souls or with their bodies, and have been obedient to the
laws, should receive eulogies; this will be very fitting.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. But to honour with hymns and panegyrics those who are still alive
is not safe; a man should run his course, and make a fair ending, and
then we will praise him; and let praise be given equally to women as
well as men who have been distinguished in virtue. The order of songs
and dances shall be as follows: There are many ancient musical
compositions and dances which are excellent, and from these the
newly-founded city may freely select what is proper and suitable; and
they shall choose judges of not less than fifty years of age, who shall
make the selection, and any of the old poems which they deem sufficient
they shall include; any that are deficient or altogether unsuitable,
they shall either utterly throw aside, or examine and amend, taking into
their counsel poets and musicians, and making use of their poetical
genius; but explaining to them the wishes of the legislator in order
that they may regulate dancing, music, and all choral strains, according
to the mind of the judges; and not allowing them to indulge, except in
some few matters, their individual pleasures and fancies.
Now the irregular strain of music is always made ten thousand times
better by attaining to law and order, and rejecting the honeyed Muse —
not however that we mean wholly to exclude pleasure, which is the
characteristic of all music. And if a man be brought up from childhood
to the age of discretion and maturity in the use of the orderly and
severe music, when he hears the opposite he detests it, and calls it
illiberal; but if trained in the sweet and vulgar music, he deems the
severer kind cold and displeasing. So that, as I was saying before,
while he who hears them gains no more pleasure from the one than from
the other, the one has the advantage of making those who are trained in
it better men, whereas the other makes them worse.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Again, we must distinguish and determine on some general principle
what songs are suitable to women, and what to men, and must assign to
them their proper melodies and rhythms. It is shocking for a whole
harmony to be inharmonical, or for a rhythm to be unrhythmical, and this
will happen when the melody is inappropriate to them. And therefore the
legislator must assign to these also their forms. Now both sexes have
melodies and rhythms which of necessity belong to them; and those of
women are clearly enough indicated by their natural difference. The
grand, and that which tends to courage, may be fairly called manly; but
that which inclines to moderation and temperance, may be declared both
in law and in ordinary speech to be the more womanly quality. This,
then, will be the general order of them.
Let us now speak of the manner of teaching and imparting them, and the
persons to whom, and the time when, they are severally to be imparted.
As the shipwright first lays down the lines of the keel, and thus, as it
were, draws the ship in outline, so do I seek to distinguish the
patterns of life, and lay down their keels according to the nature of
different men’s souls; seeking truly to consider by what means, and in
what ways, we may go through the voyage of life best. Now human affairs
are hardly worth considering in earnest, and yet we must be in earnest
about them — a sad necessity constrains us. And having got thus far,
there will be a fitness in our completing the matter, if we can only
find some suitable method of doing so. But what do I mean? Some one may
ask this very question, and quite rightly, too.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. I say that about serious matters a man should be serious, and about
a matter which is not serious he should not be, serious; and that God is
the natural and worthy object of our most serious and blessed
endeavours, for man, as I said before, is made to be the plaything of
God, and this, truly considered, is the best of him; wherefore also
every man and woman should walk seriously, and pass life in the noblest
of pastimes, and be of another mind from what they are at present.
Cle. In what respect?
Ath. At present they think that their serious suits should be for the
sake of their sports, for they deem war a serious. pursuit, which must
be managed well for the sake of peace; but the truth is, that there
neither is, nor has been, nor ever will be, either amusement or
instruction in any degree worth, speaking of in war, which is
nevertheless deemed by us to be the most serious of our pursuits. And
therefore, as we say, every one of us should live the life of peace as
long and as well as he can. And what is the right way of living? Are we
to live in sports always? If so, in what kind of sports? We ought to
live sacrificing, and singing, and dancing, and then a man will be able
to propitiate the Gods, and to defend himself against his enemies and
conquer them in battle. The type of song or dance by which he will
propitiate them has been described, and the paths along which he is to
proceed have been cut for him. He will go forward in the spirit of the
poet: Telemachus, some things thou wilt thyself find in thy heart, but
other things God will suggest; for I deem that thou wast not brought up
without the will of the Gods. — And this ought to be the view of our
alumni; they ought to think that what has been said is enough for them,
and that any other things their Genius and God will suggest to them — he
will tell them to whom, and when, and to what Gods severally they are to
sacrifice and perform dances, and how they may propitiate the deities,
and live according to the appointment of nature; being for the most part
puppets, but having some little share of reality.
Megillus. You have a low opinion of mankind, Stranger.
Ath. Nay, Megillus, be not amazed, but forgive me: I was comparing them
with the Gods; and under that feeling I spoke. Let us grant, if you
wish, that the human race is not to be despised, but is worthy of some
consideration.
Next follow the buildings for gymnasia and schools open to all; these
are to be in three places in the midst of the city; and outside the city
and in the surrounding country, also in three places, there shall be
schools for horse exercise, and large grounds arranged with a view to
archery and the throwing of missiles, at which young men may learn and
practise. Of these mention has already been made, and if the mention be
not sufficiently explicit, let us speak, further of them and embody them
in laws. In these several schools let there be dwellings for teachers,
who shall be brought from foreign parts by pay, and let them teach those
who attend the schools the art of war and the art of music, and the
children shall come not only if their parents please, but if they do not
please; there shall be compulsory education, as the saying is, of all
and sundry, as far this is possible; and the pupils shall be regarded as
belonging to the state rather than to their parents. My law would apply
to females as well as males; they shall both go through the same
exercises. I assert without fear of contradiction that gymnastic and
horsemanship are as suitable to women as to men. Of the truth of this I
am persuaded from ancient tradition, and at the present day there are
said to be countless myriads of women in the neighbourhood of the Black
Sea, called Sauromatides, who not only ride on horseback like men, but
have enjoined upon them the use of bows and other weapons equally with
the men. And I further affirm, that if these things are possible,
nothing can be more absurd than the practice which prevails in our own
country, of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their
strength and with one mind, for thus the state, instead of being a
whole, is reduced to a half, but has the same imposts to pay and the
same toils to undergo; and what can be a greater mistake for any
legislator to make than this?
Cle. Very true; yet much of what has been asserted by us, Stranger is
contrary to the custom of states; still, in saying that the discourse
should be allowed to proceed, and that when the discussion is completed,
we should choose what seems best, you spoke very properly, and I now
feel compunction for what I have said. Tell me, then, what you would
next wish to say.
Ath. I should wish to say, Cleinias, as I said before, that if the
possibility of these things were not sufficiently proven in fact, then
there might be an objection to the argument, but the fact being as I
have said, he who rejects the law must find some other ground of
objection; and, failing this, our exhortation will still hold good, nor
will any one deny that women ought to share as far as possible in
education and in other ways with men. For consider; — if women do not
share in their whole life with men, then they must have some other order
of life.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And what arrangement of life to be found anywhere is preferable to
this community which we are now assigning to them? Shall we prefer that
which is adopted by the Thracians and many other races who use their
women to till the ground and to be shepherds of their herds and flocks,
and to minister to them like slaves? — Or shall we do as we and people
in our part of the world do — getting together, as the phrase is, all
our goods and chattels into one dwelling, we entrust them to our women,
who are the stewards of them, and who also preside over the shuttles and
the whole art of spinning? Or shall we take a middle course, in
Lacedaemon, Megillusletting the girls share in gymnastic and music,
while the grown-up women, no longer employed in spinning wool, are hard
at work weaving the web of life, which will be no cheap or mean
employment, and in the duty of serving and taking care of the household
and bringing up children, in which they will observe a sort of mean, not
participating in the toils of war; and if there were any necessity that
they should fight for their city and families, unlike the Amazons, they
would be unable to take part in archery or any other skilled use of
missiles, nor could they, after the example of the Goddess, carry shield
or spear, or stand up nobly for their country when it was being
destroyed, and strike terror into their enemies, if only because they
were seen in regular order? Living as they do, they would never dare at
all to imitate the Sauromatides, who, when compared with ordinary women,
would appear to be like men. Let him who will, praise your legislators,
but I must say what I think. The legislator ought to be whole and
perfect, and not half a man only; he ought not to let the female sex
live softly and waste money and have no order of life, while he takes
the utmost care of the male sex, and leaves half of life only blest with
happiness, when he might have made the whole state happy.
Meg. What shall we do, Cleinias? Shall we allow a stranger to run down
Sparta in this fashion?
Cle. Yes; for as we have given him liberty of speech we must let him go
on until we have perfected the work of legislation.
Meg. Very true.
Ath. Then now I may proceed?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. What will be the manner of life among men who may be supposed to
have their food and clothing provided for them in moderation, and who
have entrusted the practice of the arts to others, and whose husbandry,
committed to slaves paying a part of the produce, brings them a return
sufficient for men living temperately; who, moreover, have common tables
in which the men are placed apart, and near them are the common tables
of their families, of their daughters and mothers, which day by day, the
officers, male and female, are to inspect — they shall see to the
behaviour of the company, and so dismiss them; after which the presiding
magistrate and his attendants shall honour with libations those Gods to
whom that day and night are dedicated, and then go home? To men whose
lives are thus ordered, is there no work remaining to be done which is
necessary and fitting, but shall each one of them live fattening like a
beast? Such a life is neither just nor honourable, nor can he who lives
it fail of meeting his due; and the due reward of the idle fatted beast
is that he should be torn in pieces by some other valiant beast whose
fatness is worn down by brave deeds and toil. These regulations, if we
duly consider them, will never be exactly carried into execution under
present circumstances, nor as long as women and children and houses and
all other things are the private property of individuals; but if we can
attain the second-best form of polity, we shall be very well off.
And to men living under this second polity there remains a work to be
accomplished which is far from being small or insignificant, but is the
greatest of all works, and ordained by the appointment of righteous law.
For the life which may be truly said to be concerned with the virtue of
body and soul is twice, or more than twice, as full of toil and trouble
as the pursuit after Pythian and Olympic victories, which debars a man
from every employment of life. For there ought to be no bye-work
interfering with the greater work of providing the necessary exercise
and nourishment for the body, and instruction and education for the
soul. Night and day are not long enough for the accomplishment of their
perfection and consummation; and therefore to this end all freemen ought
to arrange the way in which they will spend their time during the whole
course of the day, from morning till evening and from evening till the
morning of the next sunrise. There may seem to be some impropriety in
the legislator determining minutely the numberless details of the
management of the house, including such particulars as the duty of
wakefulness in those who are to be perpetual watchmen of the whole city;
for that any citizen should continue during the whole of any night in
sleep, instead of being seen by all his servants, always the first to
awake and get up — this, whether the regulation is to be called a law or
only a practice, should be deemed base and unworthy of a freeman; also
that the mistress of the house should be awakened by her handmaidens
instead of herself first awakening them, is what the slaves, male and
female, and the serving-boys, and, if that were possible, everybody and
everything in the house should regard as base. If they rise early, they
may all of them do much of their public and of their household business,
as magistrates in the city, and masters and mistresses in their private
houses, before the sun is up. Much sleep is not required by nature,
either for our souls or bodies, or for the actions which they perform.
For no one who is asleep is good for anything, any more than if he were
dead; but he of us who has the most regard for life and reason keeps
awake as long he can, reserving only so much time for sleep as is
expedient for health; and much sleep is not required, if the habit of
moderation be once rightly formed. Magistrates in states who keep awake
at night are terrible to the bad, whether enemies or citizens, and are
honoured and reverenced by the just and temperate, and are useful to
themselves and to the whole state.
A night which is passed in such a manner, in addition to all the
above-mentioned advantages, infuses a sort of courage into the minds of
the citizens. When the day breaks, the time has arrived for youth to go
to their schoolmasters. Now neither sheep nor any other animals can live
without a shepherd, nor can children be left without tutors, or slaves
without masters. And of all animals the boy is the most unmanageable,
inasmuch as he has the fountain of reason in him not yet regulated; he
is the most insidious, sharp-witted, and insubordinate of animals.
Wherefore he must be bound with many bridles; in the first place, when
he gets away from mothers and nurses, he must be under the management of
tutors on account of his childishness and foolishness; then, again,
being a freeman, he must be controlled by teachers, no matter what they
teach, and by studies; but he is also a slave, and in that regard any
freeman who comes in his way may punish him and his tutor and his
instructor, if any of them does anything wrong; and he who comes across
him and does not inflict upon him the punishment which he deserves,
shall incur the greatest disgrace; and let the guardian of the law, who
is the director of education, see to him who coming in the way of the
offences which we have mentioned, does not chastise them when he ought,
or chastises them in a way which he ought not; let him keep a sharp
look-out, and take especial care of the training of our children,
directing their natures, and always turning them to good according to
the law.
But how can our law sufficiently train the director of education.
himself; for as yet all has been imperfect, and nothing has been said
either clear or satisfactory? Now, as far as possible, the law ought to
leave nothing to him, but to explain everything, that he may be an
interpreter and tutor to others. About dances and music and choral
strains, I have already spoken both to the character of the selection of
them, and the manner in which they are to be amended and consecrated.
But we have not as yet spoken, O illustrious guardian of education, of
the manner in which your pupils are to use those strains which are
written in prose, although you have been informed what martial strains
they are to learn and practise; what relates in the first place to the
learning of letters, and secondly, to the lyre, and also to calculation,
which, as we were saying, is needful for them all to learn, and any
other things which are required with a view to war and the management of
house and city, and, looking to the same object, what is useful in the
revolutions of the heavenly bodies — the stars and sun and moon, and the
various regulations about these matters which are necessary for the
whole state — I am speaking of the arrangements of; days in periods of
months, and of months in years, which are to be observed, in order that
seasons and sacrifices and festivals may have their regular and natural
order, and keep the city alive and awake, the Gods receiving the honours
due to them, and men having a better understanding about them: all these
things, O my friend, have not yet been sufficiently declared to you by
the legislator. Attend, then, to what I am now going to say: We were
telling you, in the first place, that you were not sufficiently informed
about letters, and the objection was to this effectthat you were never
told whether he who was meant to be a respectable citizen should apply
himself in detail to that sort of learning, or not apply himself at all;
and the same remark holds good of the study of the lyre. But now we say
that he ought to attend to them.
A fair time for a boy of ten years old to spend in letters is three
years; the age of thirteen is the proper time for him to begin to handle
the lyre, and he may continue at this for another three years, neither
more nor less, and whether his father or himself like or dislike the
study, he is not to be allowed to spend more or less time in learning
music than the law allows. And let him who disobeys the law be deprived
of those youthful honours of which we shall hereafter speak. Hear,
however, first of all, what the young ought to learn in the early years
of life, and what their instructors ought to teach them. They ought to
be occupied with their letters until they are to read and write; but the
acquisition of perfect beauty or quickness in writinig, if nature has
not stimulated them to acquire these accomplishments in the given number
of years, they should let alone. And as to the learning of compositions
committed to writing which are not set to the lyre, whether metrical or
without rhythmical divisions, compositions in prose, as they are termed,
having no rhythm or harmony — seeing how dangerous are the writings
handed down to us by many writers of this class — what will you do with
them, O most excellent guardians of the law? or how can the lawgiver
rightly direct you about them? I believe that he will be in great
difficulty.
Cle. What troubles you, Stranger? and why are you so perplexed in your
mind?
Ath. You naturally ask, Cleinias, and to you and Megillus, who are my
partners in the work of legislation, I must state the more difficult as
well as the easier parts of the task.
Cle. To what do you refer in this instance?
Ath. I will tell you. There is a difficulty in opposing many myriads of
mouths.
Cle. Well, and have we not already opposed the popular voice in many
important enactments?
Ath. That is quite true; and you mean to imply, that the road which we
are taking may be disagreeable to some but is agreeable to as many
others, or if not to as many, at any rate to persons not inferior to the
others, and in company with them you bid me, at whatever risk, to
proceed along the p
Ath. of legislation which has opened out of our present discourse, and
to be of good cheer, and not to faint.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And I do not faint; I say, indeed, that we have a great many poets
writing in hexameter, trimeter, and all sorts of measures — some who are
serious, others who aim only at raising a laugh — and all mankind
declare that the youth who are rightly educated should be brought up in
them and saturated with them; some insist that they should be constantly
hearing them read aloud, and always learning them, so as to get by heart
entire poets; while others select choice passages and long speeches, and
make compendiums of them, saying that these ought to be committed to
memory, if a man is to be made good and wise by experience and learning
of many things. And you want me now to tell them plainly in what they
are right and in what they are wrong.
Cle. Yes, I do.
Ath. But how can I in one word rightly comprehend all of them? I am of
opinion, and, if I am not mistaken, there is a general agreement, that
every one of these poets has said many things well and many things the
reverse of well; and if this be true, then I do affirm that much
learning is dangerous to youth.
Cle. How would you advise the guardian of the law to act?
Ath. In what respect?
Cle. I mean to what pattern should he look as his guide in permitting
the young to learn some things and forbidding them to learn others. Do
not shrink from answering.
Ath. My good Cleinias, I rather think that I am fortunate.
Cle. How so?
Ath. I think that I am not wholly in want of a pattern, for when I
consider the words which we have spoken from early dawn until now, and
which, as I believe, have been inspired by Heaven, they appear to me to
be quite like a poem. When I reflected upon all these words of ours. I
naturally felt pleasure, for of all the discourses which I have ever
learnt or heard, either in poetry or prose, this seemed to me to be the
justest, and most suitable for young men to hear; I cannot imagine any
better pattern than this which the guardian of the law who is also the
director of education can have. He cannot do better than advise the
teachers to teach the young these words and any which are of a like
nature, if he should happen to find them, either in poetry or prose, or
if he come across unwritten discourses akin to ours, he should certainly
preserve them, and commit them to writing. And, first of all, he shall
constrain the teachers themselves to learn and approve them, and any of
them who will not, shall not be employed by him, but those whom he finds
agreeing in his judgment, he shall make use of and shall commit to them
the instruction and education of youth. And here and on this wise let my
fanciful tale about letters and teachers of letters come to an end.
Cle. I do not think, Stranger, that we have wandered out of the proposed
limits of the argument; but whether we are right or not in our whole
conception, I cannot be very certain.
Ath. The truth, Cleinias, may be expected to become clearer when, as we
have often said, we arrive at the end of the whole discussion about
laws.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And now that we have done with the teacher of letters, the teacher
of the lyre has to receive orders from us.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. I think that we have only to recollect our previous discussions,
and we shall be able to give suitable regulations touching all this part
of instruction and education to the teachers of the lyre.
Cle. To what do you refer?
Ath. We were saying, if I remember rightly, that the sixty-year-old
choristers of Dionysus were to be specially quick in their perceptions
of rhythm and musical composition, that they might be able to
distinguish good and bad imitation, that is to say, the imitation of the
good or bad soul when under the influence of passion, rejecting the one
and displaying the other in hymns and songs, charming the souls of
youth, and inviting them to follow and attain virtue by the way of
imitation.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And with this view, the teacher and the learner ought to use the
sounds of the lyre, because its notes are pure, the player who teaches
and his pupil rendering note for note in unison; but complexity, and
variation of notes, when the strings give one sound and the poet or
composer of the melody gives another — also when they make concords and
harmonies in which lesser and greater intervals, slow and quick, or high
and low notes, are combined — or, again, when they make complex
variations of rhythms, which they adapt to the notes of the lyre — all
that sort of thing is not suited to those who have to acquire a speedy
and useful knowledge of music in three years; for opposite principles
are confusing, and create a difficulty in learning, and our young men
should learn quickly, and their mere necessary acquirements are not few
or trifling, as will be shown in due course. Let the director of
education attend to the principles concerning music which we are laying
down. As to the songs and words themselves which the masters of choruses
are to teach and the character of them, they have been already described
by us, and are the same which, when consecrated and adapted to the
different festivals, we said were to benefit cities by affording them an
innocent amusement.
Cle. That, again, is true.
Ath. Then let him who has been elected a director of music receive these
rules from us as containing the very truth; and may he prosper in his
office! Let us now proceed to lay down other rules in addition to the
preceding about dancing and gymnastic exercise in general. Having said
what remained to be said about the teaching of music, let us speak in
like manner about gymnastic. For boys and girls ought to learn to dance
and practise gymnastic exercisesought they not?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. Then the boys ought to have dancing masters, and the girls dancing
mistresses to exercise them.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Then once more let us summon him who has the chief concern in the
business, the superintendent of youth [i.e., the director of education];
he will have plenty to do, if he is to have the charge of music and
gymnastic.
Cle. But how will old man be able to attend to such great charges?
Ath. O my friend, there will be no difficulty, for the law has already
given and will give him permission to select as his assistants in this
charge any citizens, male or female, whom he desires; and he will know
whom he ought to choose, and will be anxious not to make a mistake, from
a due sense of responsibility, and from a consciousness of the
importance of his office, and also because he will consider that if
young men have been and are well brought up, then all things go
swimmingly, but if not, it is not meet to say, nor do we say, what will
follow, lest the regarders of omens should take alarm about our infant
state. Many things have been said by us about dancing and about
gymnastic movements in general; for we include under gymnastics all
military exercises, such as archery, and all hurling of weapons, and the
use of the light shield, and all fighting with heavy arms, and military
evolutions, and movements of armies, and encampings, and all that
relates to horsemanship. Of all these things there ought to be public
teachers, receiving pay from the state, and their pupils should be the
men and boys in the state, and also the girls and women, who are to know
all these things. While they are yet girls they should have practised
dancing in arms and the whole art of fighting — when grown-up women,
they should apply themselves to evolutions and tactics, and the mode of
grounding and taking up arms; if for no other reason, yet in case the
whole military force should have to leave the city and carry on
operations of war outside, that those who will have to guard the young
and the rest of the city may be equal to the task; and, on the other
hand, when enemies, whether barbarian or Hellenic, come from without
with mighty force and make a violent assault upon them, and thus compel
them to fight for the possession of the city, which is far from being an
impossibility, great would be the disgrace to the state, if the women
had been so miserably trained that they could not fight for their young,
as birds will, against any creature however strong, and die or undergo
any danger, but must instantly rush to the temples and crowd at the
altars and shrines, and bring upon human nature the reproach, that of
all animals man is the most cowardly!
Cle. Such a want of education, Stranger, is certainly an unseemly thing
to happen in a state, as well as a great misfortune.
Ath. Suppose that we carry our law to the extent of saying that women
ought not to neglect military matters, but that all citizens, male and
female alike, shall attend to them?
Cle. I quite agree.
Ath. Of wrestling we have spoken in part, but of what I should call the
most important part we have not spoken, and cannot easily speak without
showing at the same time by gesture as well as in word what we mean;
when word and action combine, and not till then, we shall explain
clearly what has been said, pointing out that of all movements wrestling
is most akin to the military art, and is to be pursued for the sake of
this, and not this for the sake of wrestling.
Cle. Excellent.
Ath. Enough of wrestling; we will now proceed to speak of other
movements of the body. Such motion may be in general called dancing, and
is of two kinds: one of nobler figures, imitating the honourable, the
other of the more ignoble figures, imitating the mean; and of both these
there are two further subdivisions. Of the serious, one kind is of those
engaged in war and vehement action, and is the exercise of a noble
person and a manly heart; the other exhibits a temperate soul in the
enjoyment of prosperity and modest pleasures, and may be truly called
and is the dance of peace. The warrior dance is different from the
peaceful one, and may be rightly termed Pyrrhic; this imitates the modes
of avoiding blows and missiles by dropping or giving way, or springing
aside, or rising up or falling down; also the opposite postures which
are those of action, as, for example, the imitation of archery and the
hurling of javelins, and of all sorts of blows. And when the imitation
is of brave bodies and souls, and the action is direct and muscular,
giving for the most part a straight movement to the limbs of the body —
that, I say, is the true sort; but the opposite is not right. In the
dance of peace what we have to consider is whether a man bears himself
naturally and gracefully, and after the manner of men who duly conform
to the law. But before proceeding I must distinguish the dancing about
which there is any doubt, from that about which there is no doubt. Which
is the doubtful kind, and how are the two to be distinguished?
There are dances of the Bacchic sort, both those in which, as they say,
they imitate drunken men, and which are named after the Nymphs, and Pan,
and Silenuses, and Satyrs; and also those in which purifications are
made or mysteries celebrated — all this sort of dancing cannot be
rightly defined as having either a peaceful or a warlike character, or
indeed as having any meaning whatever and may, I think, be most truly
described as distinct from the warlike dance, and distinct from the
peaceful, and not suited for a city at all. There let it lie; and so
leaving it to lie, we will proceed to the dances of war and peace, for
with these we are undoubtedly concerned. Now the unwarlike muse, which
honours in dance the Gods and the sons of the Gods, is entirely
associated with the consciousness of prosperity; this class may be
subdivided into two lesser classes, of which one is expressive of an
escape from some labour or danger into good, and has greater pleasures,
the other expressive of preservation and increase of former good, in
which the pleasure is less exciting; — in all these cases, every man
when the pleasure is greater, moves his body more, and less when the
pleasure is less; and, again, if he be more orderly and has learned
courage from discipline he waves less, but if he be a coward, and has no
training or self-control, he makes greater and more violent movements,
and in general when he is speaking or singing he is not altogether able
to keep his body still; and so out of the imitation of words in gestures
the whole art of dancing has arisen. And in these various kinds of
imitation one man moves in an orderly, another in a disorderly manner;
and as the ancients may be observed to have given many names which are
according to nature and deserving of praise, so there is an excellent
one which they have given to the dances of men who in their times of
prosperity are moderate in their pleasures — the giver of names, whoever
he was, assigned to them a very true, and poetical, and rational name,
when he called them Emmeleiai, or dances of order, thus establishing two
kinds of dances of the nobler sort, the dance of war which he called the
Pyrrhic, and the dance of peace which he called Emmeleia, or the dance
of order; giving to each their appropriate and becoming name. These
things the legislator should indicate in general outline, and the
guardian of the law should enquire into them and search them out,
combining dancing with music, and assigning to the several sacrificial
feasts that which is suitable to them; and when he has consecrated all
of them in due order, he shall for the future change nothing, whether of
dance or song.
Thenceforward the city and the citizens shall continue to have the same
pleasures, themselves being as far as possible alike, and shall live
well and happily.
I have described the dances which are appropriate to noble bodies and
generous souls. But it is necessary also to consider and know uncomely
persons and thoughts, and those which are intended to produce laughter
in comedy, and have a comic character in respect of style, song, and
dance, and of the imitations which these afford.
For serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor
opposites at all without opposites, if a man is really to have
intelligence of either; but he can not carry out both in action, if he
is to have any degree of virtue. And for this very reason he should
learn them both, in order that he may not in ignorance do or say
anything which is ridiculous and out of place — he should command slaves
and hired strangers to imitate such things, but he should never take any
serious interest in them himself, nor should any freeman or freewoman be
discovered taking pains to learn them; and there should always be some
element of novelty in the imitation. Let these then be laid down, both
in law and in our discourse, as the regulations of laughable amusements
which are generally called comedy. And, if any of the serious poets, as
they are termed, who write tragedy, come to us and say — “O strangers,
may we go to your city and country or may we not, and shall we bring
with us our poetry — what is your will about these matters?” —how shall
we answer the divine men? I think that our answer should be as follows:
Best of strangers, we will say to them, we also according to our ability
are tragic poets, and our tragedy is the best and noblest; for our whole
state is an imitation of the best and noblest life, which we affirm to
be indeed the very truth of tragedy. You are poets and we are poets,
both makers of the same strains, rivals and antagonists in the noblest
of dramas, which true law can alone perfect, as our hope is. Do not then
suppose that we shall all in a moment allow you to erect your stage in
the agora, or introduce the fair voices of your actors, speaking above
our own, and permit you to harangue our women and children, and the
common people, about our institutions, in language other than our own,
and very often the opposite of our own. For a state would be mad which
gave you this licence, until the magistrates had determined whether your
poetry might be recited, and was fit for publication or not. Wherefore,
O ye sons and scions of the softer Muses, first of all show your songs
to the magistrates, and let them compare them with our own, and if they
are the same or better we will give you a chorus; but if not, then, my
friends, we cannot. Let these, then, be the customs ordained by law
about all dances and the teaching of them, and let matters relating to
slaves be separated from those relating to masters, if you do not
object.
Cle. We can have no hesitation in assenting when you put the matter
thus.
Ath. There still remain three studies suitable for freemen. Arithmetic
is one of them; the measurement of length, surface, and depth is the
second; and the third has to do with the revolutions of the stars in
relation to one another. Not every one has need to toil through all
these things in a strictly scientific manner, but only a few, and who
they are to be we will hereafter indicate at the end, which will be the
proper place; not to know what is necessary for mankind in general, and
what is the truth, is disgraceful to every one: and yet to enter into
these matters minutely is neither easy, nor at all possible for every
one; but there is something in them which is necessary and cannot be set
aside, and probably he who made the proverb about God originally had
this in view when he said, that “not even God himself can fight against
necessity”; — he meant, if I am not mistaken, divine necessity; for as
to the human necessities of which the many speak, when they talk in this
manner, nothing can be more ridiculous than such an application of the
words.
Cle. And what necessities of knowledge are there, Stranger, which are
divine and not human?
Ath. I conceive them to be those of which he who has no use nor any
knowledge at all cannot be a God, or demi-god, or hero to mankind, or
able to take any serious thought or charge of them. And very unlike a
divine man would he be, who is unable to count one, two, three, or to
distinguish odd and even numbers, or is unable to count at all, or
reckon night and day, and who is totally unacquainted with the
revolution of the sun and moon, and the other stars. There would be
great folly in supposing that all these are not necessary parts of
knowledge to him who intends to know anything about the highest kinds of
knowledge; but which these are, and how many there are of them, and when
they are to be learned, and what is to be learned together and what
apart, and the whole correlation of them, must be rightly apprehended
first; and these leading the way we may proceed to the other parts of
knowledge. For so necessity grounded in nature constrains us, against
which we say that no God contends, or ever will contend.
Cle. I think, Stranger, that what you have now said is very true and
agreeable to nature.
Ath. Yes, Cleinias, that is so. But it is difficult for the legislator
to begin with these studies; at a more convenient time we will make
regulations for them.
Cle. You seem, Stranger, to be afraid of our habitual ignorance of the
subject: there is no reason why that should prevent you from speaking
out.
Ath. I certainly am afraid of the difficulties to which you allude, but
I am still more afraid of those who apply themselves to this sort of
knowledge, and apply themselves badly. For entire ignorance is not so
terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all;
too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with an ill
bringing up, are far more fatal.
Cle. True.
Ath. All freemen, I conceive, should learn as much of these branches of
knowledge as every child in Egypt is taught when he learns the alphabet.
In that country arithmetical games have been invented for the use of
mere children, which they learn as a pleasure and amusement. They have
to distribute apples and garlands, using the same number sometimes for a
larger and sometimes for a lesser number of persons; and they arrange
pugilists, and wrestlers as they pair together by lot or remain over,
and show how their turns come in natural order. Another mode of amusing
them is to distribute vessels, sometimes of gold, brass, silver, and the
like, intermixed with one another, sometimes of one metal only; as I was
saying they adapt to their amusement the numbers in common use, and in
this way make more intelligible to their pupils the arrangements and
movements of armies and expeditions, in the management of a household
they make people more useful to themselves, and more wide awake; and
again in measurements of things which have length, and breadth, and
depth, they free us from that natural ignorance of all these things
which is so ludicrous and disgraceful.
Cle. What kind of ignorance do you mean?
Ath. O my dear Cleinias, I, like yourself, have late in life heard with
amazement of our ignorance in these matters; to me we appear to be more
like pigs than men, and I am quite ashamed, not only of myself, but of
all Hellenes.
Cle. About what? Say, Stranger, what you mean.
Ath. I will; or rather I will show you my meaning by a question, and do
you please to answer me: You know, I suppose, what length is?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And what breadth is?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. And you know that these are two distinct things, and that there is
a third thing called depth?
Cle. Of course.
Ath. And do not all these seem to you to be commensurable with
themselves?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. That is to say, length is naturally commensurable with length, and
breadth with breadth, and depth in like manner with depth?
Cle. Undoubtedly.
Ath. But if some things are commensurable and others wholly
incommensurable, and you think that all things are commensurable, what
is your position in regard to them?
Cle. Clearly, far from good.
Ath. Concerning length and breadth when compared with depth, or breadth
when and length when compared with one another, are not all the Hellenes
agreed that these are commensurable with one in some way?
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. But if they are absolutely incommensurable, and yet all of us
regard them as commensurable, have we not reason to be ashamed of our
compatriots; and might we not say to them: O ye best of Hellenes, is not
this one of the things of which we were saying that not to know them is
disgraceful, and of which to have a bare knowledge only is no great
distinction?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And there are other things akin to these, in which there spring up
other errors of the same family.
Cle. What are they?
Ath. The natures of commensurable and incommensurable quantities in
their relation to one another. A man who is good for a thing ought to be
able, when he thinks, to distinguish them; and different persons should
compete with one another in asking questions, which will be a fair,
better and more graceful way of passing their time than the old man’s
game of draughts.
Cle. I dare say; and these pastimes are not so very unlike a game of
draughts.
Ath. And these, as I maintain, Cleinias, are the studies which our youth
ought to learn, for they are innocent and not difficult; the learning of
them will be an amusement, and they will benefit the state. If anyone is
of another mind, let him say what he has to say.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then if these studies are such as we maintain we will include them;
if not, they shall be excluded.
Cle. Assuredly: but may we not now, Stranger, prescribe these studies as
necessary, and so fill up the lacunae of our laws?
Ath. They shall be regarded as pledges which may be hereafter redeemed
and removed from our state, if they do not please either us who give
them, or you who accept them.
Cle. A fair condition.
Ath. Next let us see whether we are or are not willing that the study of
astronomy shall be proposed for our youth.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. Here occurs a strange phenomenon, which certainly cannot in any
point of view be tolerated.
Cle. To what are you referring?
Ath. Men say that we ought not to enquire into the supreme God and the
nature of the universe, nor busy ourselves in searching out the causes
of things, and that such enquiries are impious; whereas the very
opposite is the truth.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. Perhaps what I am saying may seem paradoxical, and at variance with
the usual language of age. But when any one has any good and true notion
which is for the advantage of the state and in every way acceptable to
God, he cannot abstain from expressing it.
Cle. Your words are reasonable enough; but shall we find any good or
true notion about the stars?
Ath. My good friends, at this hour all of us Hellenes tell lies, if I
may use such an expression, about those great Gods, the Sun and the
Moon.
Cle. Lies of what nature?
Ath. We say that they and divers other stars do not keep the same path,
and we call them planets or wanderers.
Cle. Very true, Stranger; and in the course of my life I have often
myself seen the morning star and the evening star and divers others not
moving in their accustomed course, but wandering out of their p
Ath. in all manner of ways, and I have seen the sun and moon doing what
we all know that they do.
Ath. Just so, Megillus and Cleinias; and I maintain that our citizens
and our youth ought to learn about the nature of the Gods in heaven, so
far as to be able to offer sacrifices and pray to them in pious
language, and not to blaspheme about them.
Cle. There you are right if such a knowledge be only attainable; and if
we are wrong in our mode of speaking now, and can be better instructed
and learn to use better language, then I quite agree with you that such
a degree of knowledge as will enable us to speak rightly should be
acquired by us. And now do you try to explain to us your whole meaning,
and we, on our part, will endeavour to understand you.
Ath. There is some difficulty in understanding my meaning, but not a
very great one, nor will any great length of time be required. And of
this I am myself a proof; for I did not know these things long ago, nor
in the days of my youth, and yet I can explain them to you in a brief
space of time; whereas if they had been difficult I could certainly
never have explained them all, old as I am, to old men like yourselves.
Cle. True; but what is this study which you describe as wonderful and
fitting for youth to learn, but of which we are ignorant? Try and
explain the nature of it to us as clearly as you can.
Ath. I will. For, O my good friends, that other doctrine about the
wandering of the sun and the moon and the other stars is not the truth,
but the very reverse of the truth. Each of them moves in the same path —
not in many paths, but in one only, which is circular, and the varieties
are only apparent. Nor are we right in supposing that the swiftest of
them is the slowest, nor conversely, that the slowest is the quickest.
And if what I say is true, only just imagine that we had a similar
notion about horses running at Olympia, or about men who ran in the long
course, and that we addressed the swiftest as the slowest and the
slowest as the swiftest, and sang the praises of the vanquished as
though he were the victor, — in that case our praises would not be true,
nor very agreeable to the runners, though they be but men; and now, to
commit the same error about the Gods which would have been ludicrous and
erroneous in the case of men — is not that ludicrous and erroneous?
Cle. Worse than ludicrous, I should say.
Ath. At all events, the Gods cannot like us to be spreading a false
report of them.
Cle. Most true, if such is the fact.
Ath. And if we can show that such is really the fact, then all these
matters ought to be learned so far as is necessary for the avoidance of
impiety; but if we cannot, they may be let alone, and let this be our
decision.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Enough of laws relating to education and learning. But hunting and
similar pursuits in like manner claim our attention. For the legislator
appears to have a duty imposed upon him which goes beyond mere
legislation. There is something over and above law which lies in a
region between admonition and law, and has several times occurred to us
in the course of discussion; for example, in the education of very young
children there were things, as we maintain, which are not to be defined,
and to regard them as matters of positive law is a great absurdity. Now,
our laws and the whole constitution of our state having been thus
delineated, the praise of the virtuous citizen is not complete when he
is described as the person who serves the laws best and obeys them most,
but the higher form of praise is that which describes him as the good
citizen who passes through life undefiled and is obedient to the words
of the legislator, both when he is giving laws and when he assigns
praise and blame. This is the truest word that can be spoken in praise
of a citizen; and the true legislator ought not only to write his laws,
but also to interweave with them all such things as seem to him
honourable and dishonourable. And the perfect citizen ought to seek to
strengthen these no less than the principles of law which are sanctioned
by punishments. I will adduce an example which will clear up my meaning,
and will be a sort of witness to my words. Hunting is of wide extent,
and has a name under which many things are included, for there is a
hunting of creatures in the water, and of creatures in the air, and
there is a great deal of hunting of land animals of all kinds, and not
of wild beasts only.
The hunting after man is also worthy of consideration; there is the
hunting after him in war, and there is often a hunting after him in the
way of friendship, which is praised and also blamed; and there is
thieving, and the hunting which is practised by robbers, and that of
armies against armies. Now the legislator, in laying down laws about
hunting, can neither abstain from noting these things, nor can he make
threatening ordinances which will assign rules and penalties about all
of them. What is he to do? He will have to praise and blame hunting with
a view to the exercise and pursuits of youth. And, on the other hand,
the young man must listen obediently; neither pleasure nor pain should
hinder him, and he should regard as his standard of action the praises
and injunctions of the legislator rather than the punishments which he
imposes by law.
This being premised, there will follow next in order moderate praise and
censure of hunting; the praise being assigned to that kind which will
make the souls of young men better, and the censure to that which has
the opposite effect.
And now let us address young men in the form of a prayer for their
welfare: O friends, we will say to them, may no desire or love of
hunting in the sea, or of angling or of catching the creatures in the
waters, ever take possession of you, either when you are awake or when
you are asleep, by hook or with weels, which latter is a very lazy
contrivance; and let not any desire of catching men and of piracy by sea
enter into your souls and make you cruel and lawless hunters. And as to
the desire of thieving in town or country, may it never enter into your
most passing thoughts; nor let the insidious fancy of catching birds,
which is hardly worthy of freemen, come into the head of any youth.
There remains therefore for our athletes only the hunting and catching
of land animals, of which the one sort is called hunting by night, in
which the hunters sleep in turn and are lazy; this is not to be
commended any more than that which has intervals of rest, in which the
will strength of beasts is subdued by nets and snares, and not by the
victory of a laborious spirit. Thus, only the best kind of hunting is
allowed at all — that of quadrupeds, which is carried on with horses and
dogs and men’s own persons, and they get the victory over the animals by
running them down and striking them and hurling at them, those who have
a care of godlike manhood taking them with their own hands. The praise
and blame which is assigned to all these things has now been declared;
and let the law be as follows: Let no one hinder these who verily are
sacred hunters from following the chase wherever and whither soever they
will; but the hunter by night, who trusts to his nets and gins, shall
not be allowed to hunt anywhere. The fowler in the mountains and waste
places shall be permitted, but on cultivated ground and on consecrated
wilds he shall not be permitted; and any one who meets him may stop him.
As to the hunter in waters, he may hunt anywhere except in harbours or
sacred streams or marshes or pools, provided only that he do not pollute
the water with poisonous juices. And now we may say that all our
enactments about education are complete.
Cle. Very good.
BOOK VIII
Athenian Stranger. Next, with the help of the Delphian oracle, we have
to institute festivals and make laws about them, and to determine what
sacrifices will be for the good of the city, and to what Gods they shall
be offered; but when they shall be offered, and how often, may be partly
regulated by us.
Cleinias. The number — yes.
Ath. Then we will first determine the number; and let the whole number
be 365 — one for every day — so that one magistrate at least will
sacrifice daily to some God or demi-god on behalf of the city, and the
citizens, and their possessions. And the interpreters, and priests, and
priestesses, and prophets shall meet, and, in company with the guardians
of the law, ordain those things which the legislator of necessity omits;
and I may remark that they are the very persons who ought to take note
of what is omitted. The law will say that there are twelve feasts
dedicated to the twelve Gods, after whom the several tribes are named;
and that to each of them they shall sacrifice every month, and appoint
choruses, and musical and gymnastic contests, assigning them so as to
suit the Gods and seasons of the year. And they shall have festivals for
women, distinguishing those which ought to be separated from the men’s
festivals, and those which ought not. Further, they shall not confuse
the infernal deities and their rites with the Gods who are termed
heavenly and their rites, but shall separate them, giving to Pluto his
own in the twelfth month, which is sacred to him, according to the law.
To such a deity warlike men should entertain no aversion, but they
should honour him as being always the best friend of man. For the
connection of soul and body is no way better than the dissolution of
them, as I am ready to maintain quite seriously. Moreover, those who
would regulate these matters rightly should consider, that our city
among existing cities has fellow, either in respect of leisure or comin
and of the necessaries of life, and that like an individual she ought to
live happily. And those who would live happily should in the first place
do no wrong to one another, and ought not themselves to be wronged by
others; to attain the first is not difficult, but there is great
difficulty, in acquiring the power of not being wronged. No man can be
perfectly secure against wrong, unless he has become perfectly good; and
cities are like individuals in this, for a city if good has a life of
peace, but if evil, a life of war within and without.
Wherefore the citizens ought to practise war — not in time of war, but
rather while they are at peace. And every city which has any sense,
should take the field at least for one day in every month; and for more
if the magistrates think fit, having no regard to winter cold or summer
heat; and they should go out en masse, including their wives and their
children, when the magistrates determine to lead forth the whole people,
or in separate portions when summoned by them; and they should always
provide that there should be games and sacrificial feasts, and they
should have tournaments, imitating in as lively a manner as they can
real battles. And they should distribute prizes of victory and valour to
the competitors, passing censures and encomiums on one another according
to the characters which they bear in the contests and their whole life,
honouring him who seems to be the best, and blaming him who is the
opposite. And let poets celebrate the victors — not however every poet,
but only one who in the first place is not less than fifty years of age;
nor should he be one who, although he may have musical and poetical
gifts, has never in his life done any noble or illustrious action; but
those who are themselves good and also honourable in the state, creators
of noble actions — let their poems be sung, even though they be not very
musical. And let the judgment of them rest with the instructor of youth
and the other guardians of the laws, who shall give them this privilege,
and they alone shall be free to sing; but the rest of the world shall
not have this liberty.
Nor shall any one dare to sing a song which has not been approved by the
judgment of the guardians of the laws, not even if his strain be sweeter
than the songs of Thamyras and Orpheus; but only such poems as have been
judged sacred and dedicated to the Gods, and such as are the works of
good men, which praise of blame has been awarded and which have been
deemed to fulfil their design fairly.
The regulations about liberty of speech in poetry, ought to apply
equally to men and women. The legislator may be supposed to argue the
question in his own mind: Who are my citizens for whom I have set in
order the city? Are they not competitors in the greatest of all
contests, and have they not innumerable rivals? To be sure, will be the
natural, reply. Well, but if we were training boxers, or pancratiasts,
or any other sort of athletes, would they never meet until the hour of
contest arrived; and should we do nothing to prepare ourselves
previously by daily practice? Surely, if we were boxers we should have
been learning to fight for many days before, and exercising ourselves in
imitating all those blows and wards which we were intending to use in
the hour of conflict; and in order that we might come as near to reality
as possible, instead of cestuses we should put on boxing gloves, that
the blows and the wards might be practised by us to the utmost of our
power. And if there were a lack of competitors, the ridicule of fools
would ryot deter us from hanging up a lifeless image and practising at
that. Or if we had no adversary at all, animate or inanimate, should we
not venture in the dearth of antagonists to spar by ourselves? In what
other manner could we ever study the art of self-defence?
Cle. The way which you mention Stranger, would be the only way.
Ath. And shall the warriors of our city, who are destined when occasion
calli to enter the greatest of all contests, and to fight for their
lives, and their children, and their property, and the whole city, be
worse prepared than boxers? And will the legislator, because he is
afraid that their practising with one another may appear to some
ridiculous, abstain from commanding them to go out and fight; will he
not ordain that soldiers shall perform lesser exercises without arms
every day, making dancing and all gymnastic tend to this end; and also
will he not require that they shall practise some gymnastic exercises,
greater as well as lesser, as often as every month; and that they shall
have contests one with another in every part of the country, seizing
upon posts and lying in ambush, and imitating in every respect the
reality of war; fighting with boxing-gloves and hurling javelins, and
using weapons somewhat dangerous, and as nearly as possible like the
true ones, in order that the sport may not be altogether without fear,
but may have terrors and to a certain degree show the man who has and
who has not courage; and that the honour and dishonour which are
assigned to them respectively, may prepare the whole city for the true
conflict of life? If any one dies in these mimic contests, the homicide
is involuntary, and we will make the slayer, when he has been purified
according to law, to be pure of blood, considering that if a few men
should die, others as good as they will be born; but that if fear is
dead then the citizens will never find a test of superior and inferior
natures, which is a far greater evil to the state than the loss of a
few.
Cle. We are quite agreed, Stranger, that we should legislate about such
things, and that the whole state should practise them supposed
Ath. And what is the reason that dances and contests of this sort hardly
ever exist in states, at least not to any extent worth speaking of? Is
this due to the ignorance of mankind and their legislators?
Cle. Perhaps.
Ath. Certainly not, sweet Cleinias; there are two causes, which are
quite enough to account for the deficiency.
Cle. What are they?
Ath. One cause is the love of wealth, which wholly absorbs men, and
never for a moment allows them to think of anything but their own
private possessions; on this the soul of every citizen hangs suspended,
and can attend to nothing but his daily gain; mankind are ready to learn
any branch of knowledge, and to follow any pursuit which tends to this
end, and they laugh at every other: that is one reason why a city will
not be in earnest about such contests or any other good and honourable
pursuit. But from an insatiable love of gold and silver, every man will
stoop to any art or contrivance, seemly or unseemly, in the hope of
becoming rich; and will make no objection to performing any action,
holy, or unholy and utterly base, if only like a beast he have the power
of eating and drinking all kinds of things, and procuring for himself in
every sort of way the gratification of his lusts.
Cle. True.
Ath. Let this, then, be deemed one of the causes which prevent states
from pursuing in an efficient manner the art of war, or any other noble
aim, but makes the orderly and temperate part of mankind into merchants,
and captains of ships, and servants, and converts the valiant sort into
thieves and burglars and robbers of temples, and violent, tyrannical
persons; many of whom are not without ability, but they are unfortunate.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. Must not they be truly unfortunate whose souls are compelled to
pass through life always hungering?
Cle. Then that is one cause, Stranger; but you spoke of another.
Ath. Thank you for reminding me.
Cle. The insatiable life long love of wealth, as you were saying is one
clause which absorbs mankind, and prevents them from rightly practising
the arts of war: Granted; and now tell me, what is the other?
Ath. Do you imagine that I delay because I am in a perplexity?
Cle. No; but we think that you are too severe upon the money-loving
temper, of which you seem in the present discussion to have a peculiar
dislike.
Ath. That is a very fair rebuke, Cleinias; and I will now proceed to the
second cause.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. I say that governments are a cause — democracy, oligarchy, tyranny,
concerning which I have often spoken in the previous discourse; or
rather governments they are not, for none of them exercises a voluntary
rule over voluntary subjects; but they may be truly called states of
discord, in which while the government is voluntary, the subjects always
obey against their will, and have to be coerced; and the ruler fears the
subject, and will not, if he can help, allow him to become either noble,
or rich, or strong, or valiant, or warlike at all. These two are the
chief causes of almost all evils, and of the evils of which I have been
speaking they are notably the causes. But our state has escaped both of
them; for her citizens have the greatest leisure, and they are not
subject to one another, and will, I think, be made by these laws the
reverse of lovers of money. Such a constitution may be reasonably
supposed to be the only one existing which will accept the education
which we have described, and the martial pastimes which have been
perfected according to our idea.
Cle. True.
Ath. Then next we must remember, about all gymnastic contests, that only
the warlike sort of them are to be practised and to have prizes of
victory; and those which are not military are to be given up. The
military sort had better be completely described and established by law;
and first, let us speak of running and swiftness.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Certainly the most military of all qualities is general activity of
body, whether of foot or hand. For escaping or for capturing an enemy,
quickness of foot is required; but hand-to-hand conflict and combat need
vigour and strength.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Neither of them can attain their greatest efficiency without arms.
Cle. How can they?
Ath. Then our herald, in accordance with the prevailing practice, will
first summon the runner; — he will appear armed, for to an unarmed
competitor we will not give a prize. And he shall enter first who is to
run the single course bearing arms; next, he who is to run the double
course; third, he who is to run the horse-course; and fourthly, he who
is to run the long course; the fifth whom we start, shall be the first
sent forth in heavy armour, and shall run a course of sixty stadia to
some temple of Ares — and we will send forth another, whom we will style
the more heavily armed, to run over smoother ground. There remains the
archer; and he shall run in the full equipments of an archer a distance
of 100 stadia over mountains, and across every sort of country, to a
temple of Apollo and Artemis; this shall be the order of the contest,
and we will wait for them until they return, and will give a prize to
the conqueror in each.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Let us suppose that there are three kinds of contests — one of
boys, another of beardless youths, and a third of men. For the youths we
will fix the length of the contest at two-thirds, and for the boys at
half of the entire course, whether they contend as archers or as heavy
armed. Touching the women, let the girls who are not grown up compete
naked in the stadium and the double course, and the horse-course and the
long course, and let them run on the raceground itself; those who are
thirteen years of age and upwards until their marriage shall continue to
share in contests if they are not more than twenty, and shall be
compelled to run up to eighteen; and they shall descend into the arena
in suitable dresses. Let these be the regulations about contests in
running both for men and women.
Respecting contests of strength, instead of wrestling and similar
contests of the heavier sort, we will institute conflicts in armour of
one against one, and two against two, and so on up to ten against ten.
As to what a man ought not to suffer or do, and to what extent, in order
to gain the victory — as in wrestling, the masters of the art have laid
down what is fair and what is not fair, so in fighting in armour — we
ought to call in skilful persons, who shall judge for us and be our
assessors in the work of legislation; they shall say who deserves to be
victor in combats of this sort, and what he is not to do or have done to
him, and in like manner what rule determines who is defeated; and let
these ordinances apply to women until they married as well as to men.
The pancration shall have a counterpart in a combat of the light armed;
they shall contend with bows and with light shields and with javelins
and in the throwing of stones by slings and by hand: and laws shall be
made about it, and rewards and prizes given to him who best fulfils the
ordinances of the law.
Next in order we shall have to legislate about the horse contests.
Now we do not need many horses, for they cannot be of much use in a
country like Crete, and hence we naturally do not take great pains about
the rearing of them or about horse races. There is no one who keeps a
chariot among us, and any rivalry in such matters would be altogether
out of place; there would be no sense nor any shadow of sense in
instituting contests which are not after the manner of our country. And
therefore we give our prizes for single horses — for colts who have not
yet cast their teeth, and for those who are intermediate, and for the
full-grown horses themselves; and thus our equestrian games will accord
with the nature of the country. Let them have conflict and rivalry in
these matters in accordance with the law, and let the colonels and
generals of horse decide together about all courses and about the armed
competitors in them. But we have nothing to say to the unarmed either in
gymnastic exercises or in these contests. On the other hand, the Cretan
bowman or javelin-man who fights in armour on horseback is useful, and
therefore we may as well place a competition of this sort among
amusements. Women are not to be forced to compete by laws and
ordinances; but if from previous training they have acquired the habit
and are strong enough and like to take part, let them do so, girls as
well as boys, and no blame to them.
Thus the competition in gymnastic and the mode of learning it have been
described; and we have spoken also of the toils of the contest, and of
daily exercises under the superintendence of masters. Likewise, what
relates to music has been, for the most part, completed. But as to
rhapsodes and the like, and the contests of choruses which are to
perform at feasts, all this shall be arranged when the months and days
and years have been appointed for Gods and demi-gods, whether every
third year, or again every fifth year, or in whatever way or manner the
Gods may put into men’s minds the distribution and order of them. At the
same time, we may expect that the musical contests will be celebrated in
their turn by the command of the judges and the director of education
and the guardians of the law meeting together for this purpose, and
themselves becoming legislators of the times and nature and conditions
of the choral contests and of dancing in general. What they ought
severally to be in language and song, and in the admixture of harmony
with rhythm and the dance, has been often declared by the original
legislator; and his successors ought to follow him, making the games and
sacrifices duly to correspond at fitting times, and appointing public
festivals. It is not difficult to determine how these and the like
matters may have a regular order; nor, again, will the alteration of
them do any great good or harm to the state. There is, however, another
matter of great importance and difficulty, concerning which God should
legislate, if there were any possibility of obtaining from him an
ordinance about it. But seeing that divine aid is not to be had, there
appears to be a need of some bold man who specially honours plainness of
speech, and will say outright what he thinks best for the city and
citizens — ordaining what is good and convenient for the whole state
amid the corruptions of human souls, opposing the mightiest lusts, and
having no man his helper but himself standing alone and following reason
only.
Cle. What is this, Stranger, that you are saying? For we do not as yet
understand your meaning.
Ath. Very likely; I will endeavour to explain myself more clearly. When
I came to the subject of education, I beheld young men and maidens
holding friendly intercourse with one another. And there naturally arose
in my mind a sort of apprehension — I could not help thinking how one is
to deal with a city in which youths and maidens are well nurtured, and
have nothing to do, and are not undergoing the excessive and servile
toils which extinguish wantonness, and whose only cares during their
whole life are sacrifices and festivals and dances. How, in such a state
as this, will they abstain from desires which thrust many a man and
woman into perdition; and from which reason, assuming the functions of
law, commands them to abstain? The ordinances already made may possibly
get the better of most of these desires; the prohibition of excessive
wealth is a very considerable gain in the direction of temperance, and
the whole education of our youth imposes a law of moderation on them;
moreover, the eye of the rulers is required always to watch over the
young, and never to lose sight of them; and these provisions do, as far
as human means can effect anything, exercise a regulating influence upon
the desires in general. But how can we take precautions against the
unnatural loves of either sex, from which innumerable evils have come
upon individuals and cities? How shall we devise a remedy and way of
escape out of so great a danger? Truly, Cleinias, here is a difficulty.
In many ways Crete and Lacedaemon furnish a great help to those who make
peculiar laws; but in the matter of love, as we are alone, I must
confess that they are quite against us. For if any one following nature
should lay down the law which existed before the days of Laius, and
denounce these lusts as contrary to nature, adducing the animals as a
proof that such unions were monstrous, he might prove his point, but he
would be wholly at variance with the custom of your states.
Further, they are repugnant to a principle which we say that a
legislator should always observe; for we are always enquiring which of
our enactments tends to virtue and which not. And suppose we grant that
these loves are accounted by law to be honourable, or at least not
disgraceful, in what degree will they contribute to virtue?
Will such passions implant in the soul of him who is seduced the habit
of courage, or in the soul of the seducer the principle of temperance?
Who will ever believe this? — or rather, who will not blame the
effeminacy of him who yields to pleasures and is unable to hold out
against them? Will not all men censure as womanly him who imitates the
woman? And who would ever think of establishing such a practice by law?
Certainly no one who had in his mind the image of true law. How can we
prove, that what I am saying is true? He who would rightly consider
these matters must see the nature of friendship and desire, and of these
so-called loves, for they are of two kinds, and out of the two arises a
third kind, having the same name; and this similarity of name causes all
the difficulty and obscurity.
Cle. How is that?
Ath. Dear is the like in virtue to the like, and the equal to the equal;
dear also, though unlike, is he who has abundance to him who is in want.
And when either of these friendships becomes excessive, we term the
excess love.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. The friendship which arises from contraries is horrible and coarse,
and has often no tie of communion; but that which, arises from likeness
is gentle, and has a tie of communion which lasts through life. As to
the mixed sort which is made up of them both, there is, first of all, a
in determining what he who is possessed by this third love desires;
moreover, he is drawn different ways, and is in doubt between the two
principles; the one exhorting him to enjoy the beauty of youth, and the
other forbidding him. For the one is a lover of the body, and hungers
after beauty, like ripe fruit, and would fain satisfy himself without
any regard to the character of the beloved; the other holds the desire
of the body to be a secondary matter, and looking rather than loving and
with his soul desiring the soul of the other in a becoming manner,
regards the satisfaction of the bodily love as wantonness; he reverences
and respects temperance and courage and magnanimity and wisdom, and
wishes to live chastely with the chaste object of his affection. Now the
sort of love which is made up of the other two is that which we have
described as the third. Seeing then that there are these three sorts of
love, ought the law to prohibit and forbid them all to exist among us?
Is it not rather clear that we should wish to have in the state the love
which is of virtue and which desires the beloved youth to be the best
possible; and the other two, if possible, we should hinder? What do you
say, friend Megillus? Megillus I think, Stranger, that you are perfectly
right in what you have been now saying.
Ath. I knew well, my friend, that I should obtain your assent, which I
accept, and therefore have no need to analyse your custom any further.
Cleinias shall be prevailed upon to give me his assent at some other
time. Enough of this; and now let us proceed to the laws.
Meg. Very good.
Ath. Upon reflection I see a way of imposing the law, which, in one
respect, is easy, but, in another, is of the utmost difficulty.
Meg. What do you mean?
Ath. We are all aware that most men, in spite of their lawless natures,
are very strictly and precisely restrained from intercourse with the
fair, and this is not at all against their will, but entirely with their
will.
Meg. When do you mean?
Ath. When any one has a brother or sister who is fair; and about a son
or daughter the same unwritten law holds, and is a most perfect
safeguard, so that no open or secret connection ever takes place between
them. Nor does the thought of such a thing ever enter at all into the
minds of most of them.
Meg. Very true.
Ath. Does not a little word extinguish all pleasures of that sort?
Meg. What word?
Ath. The declaration that they are unholy, hated of God, and most
infamous; and is not the reason of this that no one has ever said the
opposite, but every one from his earliest childhood has heard men
speaking in the same manner about them always and everywhere, whether in
comedy or in the graver language of tragedy? When the poet introduces on
the stage a Thyestes or an Oedipus, or a Macareus having secret
intercourse with his sister, he represents him, when found out, ready to
kill himself as the penalty of his sin.
Meg. You are very right in saying that tradition, if no breath of
opposition ever assails it, has a marvellous power.
Ath. Am I not also right in saying that the legislator who wants to
master any of the passions which master man may easily know how to
subdue them? He will consecrate the tradition of their evil character
among all, slaves and freemen, women and children, throughout the city:
that will be the surest foundation of the law which he can make.
Meg. Yes; but will he ever succeed in making all mankind use the same
language about them?
Ath. A good objection; but was I not just now saying that I had a way to
make men use natural love and abstain from unnatural, not intentionally
destroying the seeds of human increase, or sowing them in stony places,
in which they will take no root; and that I would command them to
abstain too from any female field of increase in which that which is
sown is not likely to grow? Now if a law to this effect could only be
made perpetual, and gain an authority such as already prevents
intercourse of parents and children — such a law, extending to other
sensual desires, and conquering them, would be the source of ten
thousand blessings. For, in the first place, moderation is the
appointment of nature, and deters men from all frenzy and madness of
love, and from all adulteries and immoderate use of meats and drinks,
and makes them good friends to their own wives. And innumerable other
benefits would result if such a could only be enforced. I can imagine
some lusty youth who is standing by, and who, on hearing this enactment,
declares in scurrilous terms that we are making foolish and impossible
laws, and fills the world with his outcry. And therefore I said that I
knew a way of enacting and perpetuating such a law, which was very easy
in one respect, but in another most difficult. There is no difficulty in
seeing that such a law is possible, and in what way; for, as I was
saying, the ordinance once consecrated would master the soul of, every
man, and terrify him into obedience. But matters have now come to such a
pass that even then the desired result seems as if it could not be
attained, just as the continuance of an entire state in the practice of
common meals is also deemed impossible. And although this latter is
partly disproven by the fact of their existence among you, still even in
your cities the common meals of women would be regarded as unnatural and
impossible. I was thinking of the rebelliousness of the human heart when
I said that the permanent establishment of these things is very
difficult.
Meg. Very true.
Ath. Shall I try and find some sort of persuasive argument which will
prove to you that such enactments are possible, and not beyond human
nature?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. Is a man more likely to abstain from the pleasures of love and to
do what he is bidden about them, when his body is in a good condition,
or when he is in an ill condition, and out of training?
Cle. He will be far more temperate when he is in training.
Ath. And have we not heard of Iccus of Tarentum, who, with a view to the
Olympic and other contests, in his zeal for his art, ind also because he
was of a manly and temperate disposition, never had any connection with
a woman or a youth during the whole time of his training? And the same
is said of Crison and Astylus and Diopompus and many others; and yet,
Cleinias, they were far worse educated in their minds than your and my
citizens, and in their bodies far more lusty.
Cle. No doubt this fact has been often affirmed positively by the
ancients of these athletes.
Ath. And had they; courage to abstain from what is ordinarilly deemed a
pleasure for the sake of a victory in wrestling, running, and the like;
and shall our young men be incapable of a similar endurance for the sake
of a much nobler victory, which is the noblest of all, as from their
youth upwards we will tell them, charming them, as we hope, into the
belief of this by tales and sayings and songs?
Cle. Of what victory are you speaking?
Ath. Of the victory over pleasure, which if they win, they will live
happily; or if they are conquered, the reverse of happily. And, further,
may we not suppose that the fear of impiety will enable them to master
that which other inferior people have mastered?
Cle. I dare say.
Ath. And since we have reached this point in our legislation, and have
fallen into a difficulty by reason of the vices of mankind, I affirm
that our ordinance should simply run in the following terms: Our
citizens ought not to fall below the nature of birds and beasts in
general, who are born in great multitudes, and yet remain until the age
for procreation virgin and unmarried, but when they have reached the
proper time of life are coupled, male and female, and lovingly pair
together, and live the rest of their lives in holiness and innocence,
abiding firmly in their original compact: surely, we will say to them,
you should be better than the animals.
But if they are corrupted by the other Hellenes and the common practice
of barbarians, and they see with their eyes and hear with their ears of
the so-called free love everywhere prevailing among them, and they
themselves are not able to get the better of the temptation, the
guardians of the law, exercising the functions of lawgivers, shall
devise a second law against them.
Cle. And what law would you advise them to pass if this one failed?
Ath. Clearly, Cleinias, the one which would naturally follow.
Cle. What is that?
Ath. Our citizens should not allow pleasures to strengthen with
indulgence, but should by toil divert the aliment and exuberance of them
into other parts of the body; and this will happen if no immodesty be
allowed in the practice of love. Then they will be ashamed of frequent
intercourse, and they will find pleasure, if seldom enjoyed, to be a
less imperious mistress. They should not be found out doing anything of
the sort. Concealment shall be honourable, and sanctioned by custom and
made law by unwritten prescription; on the other hand, to be detected
shall be esteemed dishonourable, but not, to abstain wholly. In this way
there will be a second legal standard of honourable and dishonourable,
involving a second notion of right. Three principles will comprehend all
those corrupt natures whom we call inferior to themselves, and who form
but one dass, and will compel them not to transgress.
Cle. What are they?
Ath. The principle of piety, the love of honour, and the desire of
beauty, not in the body but in the soul. These are, perhaps, romantic
aspirations; but they are the noblest of aspirations, if they could only
be realized in all states, and, God willing, in the matter of love we
may be able to enforce one of two things — either that no one shall
venture to touch any person of the freeborn or noble class except his
wedded wife, or sow the unconsecrated and bastard seed among harlots, or
in barren and unnatural lusts; or at least we may abolish altogether the
connection of men with men; and as to women, if any man has to do with
any but those who come into his house duly married by sacred rites,
whether they be bought or acquired in any other way, and he offends
publicly in the face of all mankind, we shall be right in enacting that
he be deprived of civic honours and privileges, and be deemed to be, as
he truly is, a stranger. Let this law, then, whether it is one, or ought
rather to be called two, be laid down respecting love in general, and
the intercourse of the sexes which arises out of the desires, whether
rightly or wrongly indulged.
Meg. I, for my part, Stranger, would gladly receive this law. Cleinias
shall speak for himself, and tell you what is his opinion.
Cle. I will, Megillus, when an opportunity offers; at present, I think
that we had better allow the Stranger to proceed with his laws.
Meg. Very good.
Ath. We had got about as far as the establishment of the common tables,
which in most places would be difficult, but in Crete no one would think
of introducing any other custom. There might arise a question about the
manner of them — whether they shall be such as they are here in Crete,
or such as they are in Lacedaemon, — or is there a third kind which may
be better than either of them? The answer to this question might be
easily discovered, but the discovery would do no great good, for at
present they are very well ordered.
Leaving the common tables, we may therefore proceed to the means of
providing food. Now, in cities the means of life are gained in many ways
and from divers sources, and in general from two sources, whereas our
city has only one. For most of the Hellenes obtain their food from sea
and land, but our citizens from land only. And this makes the task of
the legislator less difficult — half as many laws will be enough, and
much less than half; and they will be of a kind better suited to free
men. For he has nothing to do with laws about shipowners and merchants
and retailers and innkeepers and tax collectors and mines and
moneylending and compound interest and innumerable other things —
bidding good-bye to these, he gives laws to husbandmen and shepherds and
bee-keepers, and to the guardians and superintendents of their
implements; and he has already legislated for greater matters, as for
example, respecting marriage and the procreation and nurture of
children, and for education, and the establishment of offices — and now
he must direct his laws to those who provide food and labour in
preparing it.
Let us first of all, then, have a class of laws which shall be called
the laws of husbandmen. And let the first of them be the law of Zeus,
the god of boundaries. Let no one shift the boundary line either of a
fellow-citizen who is a neighbour, or, if he dwells at the extremity of
the land, of any stranger who is conterminous with him, considering that
this is truly “to move the immovable,” and every one should be more
willing to move the largest rock which is not a landmark, than the least
stone which is the sworn mark of friendship and hatred between
neighbours; for Zeus, the god of kindred, is the witness of the citizen,
and Zeus, the god of strangers, of the stranger, and when aroused,
terrible are the wars which they stir up. He who obeys the law will
never know the fatal consequences of disobedience, but he who despises
the law shall be liable to a double penalty, the first coming from the
Gods, and the second from the law. For let no one wilfully remove the
boundaries of his neighbour’s land, and if any one does, let him who
will inform the landowners, and let them bring him into court, and if he
be convicted of re-dividing the land by stealth or by force, let the
court determine what he ought to suffer or pay. In the next place, many
small injuries done by neighbours to one another, through their
multiplication, may cause a weight of enmity, and make neighbourhood a
very disagreeable and bitter thing.
Wherefore a man ought to be very careful of committing any offence
against his neighbour, and especially of encroaching on his neighbour’s
land; for any man may easily do harm, but not every man can do good to
another. He who encroaches on his neighbour’s land, and transgresses his
boundaries, shall make good the damage, and, to cure him of his
impudence and also of his meanness, he shall pay a double penalty to the
injured party. Of these and the like matters the wardens of the country
shall take cognizance, and be the judges of them and assessors of the
damage; in the more important cases, as has been already said, the whole
number of them belonging to any one of the twelve divisions shall
decide, and in the lesser cases the commanders: or, again, if any one
pastures his cattle on his neighbour’s land, they shall see the injury,
and adjudge the penalty. And if any one, by decoying the bees, gets
possession of another’s swarms, and draws them to himself by making
noises, he shall pay the damage; or if anyone sets fire to his own wood
and takes no care of his neighbour’s property, he shall be fined at the
discretion of the magistrates. And if in planting he does not leave a
fair distance between his own and his neighbour’s land, he shall be
punished, in accordance with the enactments of many law givers, which we
may use, not deeming it necessary that the great legislator of our state
should determine all the trifles which might be decided by any body; for
example, husbandmen have had of old excellent laws about waters, and
there is no reason why we should propose to divert their course: who
likes may draw water from the fountain-head of the common stream on to
his own land, if he do not cut off the spring which clearly belongs to
some other owner; and he may take the water in any direction which he
pleases, except through a house or temple or sepulchre, but he must be
careful to do no harm beyond the channel. And if there be in any place a
natural dryness of the earth, which keeps in the rain from heaven, and
causes a deficiency in the supply of water, let him dig down on his own
land as far as the clay, and if at this depth he finds no water, let him
obtain water from his neighbours, as much, as is required for his
servants’ drinking, and if his neighbours, too, are limited in their
supply, let him have a fixed measure, which shall be determined by the
wardens of the country. This he shall receive each day, and on these
terms have a share of his neighbours’ water. If there be heavy rain, and
one of those on the lower ground injures some tiller of the upper
ground, or some one who has a common wall, by refusing to give the man
outlet for water; or, again, if some one living on the higher ground
recklessly lets off the water on his lower neighbour, and they cannot
come to terms with one another, let him who will call in a warden of the
city, if he be in the city, or if he be in the country, warden of the
country, and let him obtain a decision determining what each of them is
to do. And he who will not abide by the decision shall suffer for his
malignant and morose temper, and pay a fine to the injured party,
equivalent to double the value of the injury, because he was unwilling
to submit to the magistrates.
Now the participation of fruits shall be ordered on this wise. The
goddess of Autumn has two gracious gifts: one, the joy of Dionysus which
is not treasured up; the other, which nature intends to be stored. Let
this be the law, then, concerning the fruits of autumn: He who tastes
the common or storing fruits of autumn, whether grapes or figs, before
the season of vintage which coincides with Arcturus, either on his own
land or on that of others — let him pay fifty drachmae, which shall be
sacred to Dionysus, if he pluck them from his own land; and if from his
neighbour’s land, a mina, and if from any others’, two-thirds of a mina.
And he who would gather the “choice” grapes or the “choice” figs, as
they are now termed, if he take them off his own land, let him pluck
them how and when he likes; but if he take them from the ground of
others without their leave, let him in that case be always punished in
accordance with the law which ordains that he should not move what he
has not laid down. And if a slave touches any fruit of this sort,
without the consent of the owner of the land, he shall be beaten with as
many blows as there are grapes on the bunch, or figs on the fig-tree.
Let a metic purchase the “choice” autumnal fruit, and then, if he
pleases, he may gather it; but if a stranger is passing along the road,
and desires to eat, let him take of the “choice” grapes for himself and
a single follower without payment, as a tribute of hospitality. The law
however forbids strangers from sharing in the sort which is not used for
eating; and if any one, whether he be master or slave, takes of them in
ignorance, let the slave be beaten, and the freeman dismissed with
admonitions, and instructed to take of the other autumnal fruits which
are unfit for making raisins and wine, or for laying by as dried figs.
As to pears, and apples, and pomegranates, and similar fruits, there
shall be no disgrace in taking them secretly; but he who is caught, if
he be of less than thirty years of age, shall be struck and beaten off,
but not wounded; and no freeman shall have any right of satisfaction for
such blows. Of these fruits the stranger may partake, just as he may of
the fruits of autumn. And if an elder, who is more than thirty years of
age, eat of them on the spot, let him, like the stranger, be allowed to
partake of all such fruits, but he must carry away nothing. If, however,
he will not obey the law, let him run risk of failing in the competition
of virtue, in case any one takes notice of his actions before the judges
at the time.
Water is the greatest element of nutrition in gardens, but is easily
polluted. You cannot poison the soil, or the soil, or the sun, or the
air, which are other elements of nutrition in plants, or divert them, or
steal them; but all these things may very likely happen in regard to
water, which must therefore be protected by law. And let this be the
law: If any one intentionally pollutes the water of another, whether the
water of a spring, or collected in reservoirs, either by poisonous
substances, or by digging or by theft, let the injured party bring the
cause before the wardens of the city, and claim in writing the value of
the loss; if the accused be found guilty of injuring the water by
deleterious substances, let him not only pay damages, but purify the
stream or the cistern which contains the water, in such manner as the
laws of the interpreters order the purification to be made by the
offender in each case.
With respect to the gathering in of the fruits of the soil, let a man,
if he pleases, carry his own fruits through any place in which he either
does no harm to any one, or himself gains three times as much as his
neighbour loses. Now of these things the magistrates should be
cognisant, as of all other things in which a man intentionally does
injury to another or to the property of another, by fraud or force, in
the use which he makes of his own property. All these matters a man
should lay before the magistrates, and receive damages, supposing the
injury to be not more than three minae; or if he have a charge against
another which involves a larger amount, let him bring his suit into the
public courts and have the evil-doer punished. But if any of the
magistrates appear to adjudge the penalties which he imposes in an
unjust spirit, let him be liable to pay double to the injured party. Any
one may bring the offences of magistrates, in any particular case,
before the public courts.
There are innumerable little matters relating to the modes of
punishment, and applications for suits, and summonses and the witnesses
to summonses — for example, whether two witnesses should be required for
a summons, or how many — and all such details, which cannot be omitted
in legislation, but are beneath the wisdom of an aged legislator. These
lesser matters, as they indeed are in comparison with the greater ones,
let a younger generation regulate by law, after the patterns which have
preceded, and according to their own experience of the usefulness and
necessity of such laws; and when they are duly regulated let there be no
alteration, but let the citizens live in the observance of them.
Now of artisans, let the regulations be as follows: In the first place,
let no citizen or servant of a citizen be occupied in handicraft arts;
for he who is to secure and preserve the public order of the state, has
an art which requires much study and many kinds of knowledge, and does
not admit of being made a secondary occupation; and hardly any human
being is capable of pursuing two professions or two arts rightly, or of
practising one art himself, and superintending some one else who is
practising another. Let this, then, be our first principle in the state:
No one who is a smith shall also be a carpenter, and if he be a
carpenter, he shall not superintend the smith’s art rather than his own,
under the pretext that in superintending many servants who are working
for him, he is likely to superintend them better, because more revenue
will accrue to him from them than from his own art; but let every man in
the state have one art, and get his living by that. Let the wardens of
the city labour to maintain this law, and if any citizen incline to any
other art than the study of virtue, let them punish him with disgrace
and infamy, until they bring him back into his own right course; and if
any stranger profess two arts, let them chastise him with bonds and
money penalties, and expulsion from the state, until they compel him to
be one only and not many.
But as touching payments for hire, and contracts of work, or in case any
one does wrong to any of the citizens or they do wrong to any other, up
to fifty drachmae, let the wardens of the city decide the case; but if
greater amount be involved, then let the public courts decide according
to law. Let no one pay any duty either on the importation or exportation
of goods; and as to frankincense and similar perfumes, used in the
service of the Gods, which come from abroad, and purple and other dyes
which are not produced in the country, or the materials of any art which
have to be imported, and which are not necessary — no one should import
them; nor again, should any one export anything which is wanted in the
country. Of all these things let there be inspectors and
superintendents, taken from the guardians of the law; and they shall be
the twelve next in order to the five seniors. Concerning arms, and all
implements which are for military purposes, if there be need of
introducing any art, or plant, or metal, or chains of any kind, or
animals for use in war, let the commanders of the horse and the generals
have authority over their importation and exportation; the city shall
send them out and also receive them, and the guardians of the law shall
make fit and proper laws about them. But let there be no retail trade
for the sake of money-making, either in these or any other articles, in
the city or country at all.
With respect to food and the distribution of the produce of the country,
the right and proper way seems to be nearly that which is the custom of
Crete; for all should be required to distribute the fruits of the soil
into twelve parts, and in this way consume them.
Let the twelfth portion of each (as for instance of wheat and barley, to
which the rest of the fruits of the earth shall be added, as well as the
animals which are for sale in each of the twelve divisions) be divided
in due proportion into three parts; one part for freemen, another for
their servants, and a third for craftsmen and in general for strangers,
whether sojourners who may be dwelling in the city, and like other men
must live, or those who come on some business which they have with the
state, or with some individual. Let only this third part of all
necessaries be required to be sold; out of the other two-thirds no one
shall be compelled to sell.
And how will they be best distributed? In the first place, we see
clearly that the distribution will be of equals in one point of view,
and in another point of view of unequals.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. I mean that the earth of necessity produces and nourishes the
various articles of food, sometimes better and sometimes worse.
Cle. Of course.
Ath. Such being the case, let no one of the three portions be greater
than either of the other two — neither that which is assigned to masters
or to slaves, nor again that of the stranger; but let the distribution
to all be equal and alike, and let every citizen take his two portions
and distribute them among slaves and freemen, he having power to
determine the quantity and quality. And what remains he shall distribute
by measure and numb among the animals who have to be sustained from the
earth, taking the whole number of them.
In the second place, our citizens should have separate houses duly
ordered, and this will be the order proper for men like them. There
shall be twelve hamlets, one in the middle of each twelfth portion, and
in each hamlet they shall first set apart a market-place, and the
temples of the Gods, and of their attendant demigods; and if there be
any local deities of the Magnetes, or holy seats of other ancient
deities, whose memory has been preserved, to these let them pay their
ancient honours. But Hestia, and Zeus, and Athene will have temples
everywhere together with the God who presides in each of the twelve
districts. And the first erection of houses shall be around these
temples, where the ground is highest, in order to provide the safest and
most defensible place of retreat for the guards.
All the rest of the country they shall settle in the following
manner:They shall make thirteen divisions of the craftsmen; one of them
they shall establish in the city, and this, again, they shall subdivide
into twelve lesser divisions, among the twelve districts of the city,
and the remainder shall be distributed in the country round about; and
in each village they shall settle various classes of craftsmen, with a
view to the convenience of the husbandmen. And the chief officers of the
wardens of the country shall superintend all these matters, and see how
many of them, and which class of them, each place requires; and fix them
where they are likely to be least troublesome, and most useful to the
husbandman. And the wardens of the city shall see to similar matters in
the city.
Now the wardens of the agora ought to see to the details of the agora.
Their first care, after the temples which are in the agora have been
seen to, should be to prevent any one from doing any in dealings between
man and man; in the second; place, as being inspectors of temperance and
violence, they should chastise him who requires chastisement. Touching
articles of gale, they should first see whether the articles which the
citizens are under regulations to sell to strangers are sold to them, as
the law ordains. And let the law be as follows: on the first day of the
month, the persons in charge, whoever they are, whether strangers or
slaves, who have the charge on behalf of the citizens, shall produce to
the strangers the portion which falls to them, in the first place, a
twelfth portion of the corn; — the stranger shall purchase corn for the
whole month, and other cereals, on the first market day; and on the
tenth day of the month the one party shall sell, and the other buy,
liquids sufficient to last during the whole month; and on the
twenty-third day there shall be a sale of animals by those who are
willing to sell to the people who want to buy, and of implements and
other things which husbandmen sell (such as skins and all kinds of
clothing, either woven or made of felt and other goods of the same
sort), and which strangers are compelled to buy and purchase of others.
As to the retail trade in these things, whether of barley or wheat set
apart for meal and flour, or any other kind of food, no one shall sell
them to citizens or their slaves, nor shall any one buy of a citizen;
but let the stranger sell them in the market of strangers, to artisans
and their slaves, making an exchange of wine and food, which is commonly
called retail trade. And butchers shall offer for sale parts of
dismembered animals to the strangers, and artisans, and their servants.
Let any stranger who likes buy fuel from day to day wholesale, from
those who have the care of it in the country, and let him sell to the
strangers as much he pleases and when he pleases.
As to other goods and implements which are likely to be wanted, they
shall sell them in common market, at any place which the guardians of
the law and the wardens of the market and city, choosing according to
their judgment, shall determine; at such places they shall exchange
money for goods, and goods for money, neither party giving credit to the
other; and he who gives credit must be satisfied, whether he obtain his
money not, for in such exchanges he will not be protected by law. But
whenever property has been bought or sold, greater in quantity or value
than is allowed by the law, which has determined within what limited a
man may increase and diminish his possessions, let the excess be
registered in the books of the guardians of the law; in case of
diminution, let there be an erasure made. And let the same rule be
observed about the registration of the property of the metics. Any one
who likes may come and be a metic on certain conditions; a foreigner, if
he likes, and is able to settle, may dwell in the land, but he must
practise an art, and not abide more than twenty years from the time at
which he has registered himself; and he shall pay no sojourner’s tax,
however small, except good conduct, nor any other tax for buying and
selling. But when the twenty years have expired, he shall take his
property with him and depart. And if in the course of these years he
should chance to distinguish himself by any considerable benefit which
he confers on the state, and he thinks that he can persuade the council
and assembly, either to grant him delay in leaving the country, or to
allow him to remain for the whole of his life, let him go and persuade
the city, and whatever they assent to at his instance shall take effect.
For the children of the metics, being artisans, and of fifteen years of
age, let the time of their sojourn commence after their fifteenth year;
and let them remain for twenty years, and then go where they like; but
any of them who wishes to remain, may do so, if he can persuade the
council and assembly. And if he depart, let him erase all the entries
which have been made by him in the register kept by the magistrates.
BOOK IX
Next to all the matters which have preceded in the natural order of
legislation will come suits of law. Of suits those which relate to
agriculture have been already described, but the more important have not
been described. Having mentioned them severally under their usual names,
we will proceed to say what punishments are to be inflicted for each
offence, and who are to be the judges of them. Cleinias Very good.
Athenian Stranger There is a sense of disgrace in legislating, as we are
about to do, for all the details of crime in a state which, as we say,
is to be well regulated and will be perfectly adapted to the practice of
virtue. To assume that in such a state there will arise some one who
will be guilty of crimes as heinous as any which are ever perpetrated in
other states, and that we must legislate for him by anticipation, and
threaten and make laws against him if he should arise, in order to deter
him, and punish his acts, under the idea that he will arisethis, as I
was saying, is in a manner disgraceful. Yet seeing that we are not like
the ancient legislators, who gave laws to heroes and sons of gods,
being, according to the popular belief, themselves the offspring of the
gods, and legislating for others, who were also the children of divine
parents, but that we are only men who are legislating for the sons of
men, there is no uncharitableness in apprehending that some one of our
citizens may be like a seed which has touched the ox’s horn, having a
heart so hard that it cannot be softened any more than those seeds can
be softened by fire.
Among our citizens there may be those who cannot be subdued by all the
strength of the laws; and for their sake, though an ungracious task, I
will proclaim my first law about the robbing of temples, in case any one
should dare to commit such a crime. I do not expect or imagine that any
well-brought-up citizen will ever take the infection, but their
servants, and strangers, and strangers’ servants may be guilty of many
impieties. And with a view to them especially, and yet not without a
provident eye to the weakness of human nature generally, I will proclaim
the law about robbers of temples and similar incurable, or almost
incurable, criminals. Having already agreed that such enactments ought
always to have a short prelude, we may speak to the criminal, whom some
tormenting desire by night and by day tempts to go and rob a temple, the
fewest possible words of admonition and exhortation:
O sir, we will say to him, the impulse which moves you to rob temples is
not an ordinary human malady, nor yet a visitation of heaven, but a
madness which is begotten in a man from ancient and unexpiated crimes of
his race, an ever-recurring curse; — against this you must guard with
all your might, and how you are to guard we will explain to you. When
any such thought comes into your mind, go and perform expiations, go as
a suppliant to the temples of the Gods who avert evils, go to the
society of those who are called good men among you; hear them tell and
yourself try to repeat after them, that every man should honour the
noble and the just. Fly from the company of the wicked — fly and turn
not back; and if your disorder is lightened by these remedies, well and
good, but if not, then acknowledge death to be nobler than life, and
depart hence.
Such are the preludes which we sing to all who have thoughts of unholy
and treasonable actions, and to him who hearkens to them the law has
nothing to say. But to him who is disobedient when the prelude is over,
cry with a loud voice, — He who is taken in the act of robbing temples,
if he be a slave or stranger, shall have his evil deed engraven on his
face and hands, and shall be beaten with as many stripes as may seem
good to the judges, and be cast naked beyond the borders of the land.
And if he suffers this punishment he will probably return to his right
mind and be improved; for no penalty which the law inflicts is designed
for evil, but always makes him who suffers either better or not so much
worse as he would have been. But if any citizen be found guilty of any
great or unmentionable wrong, either in relation to the gods, or his
parents, or the state, let the judge deem him to be incurable,
remembering that after receiving such an excellent education and
training from youth upward, he has not abstained from the greatest of
crimes.
His punishment shall be death, which to him will be the least of evils;
and his example will benefit others, if he perish ingloriously, and be
cast beyond the borders of the land. But let his children and family, if
they avoid the ways of their father, have glory, and let honourable
mention be made of them, as having nobly and manfully escaped out of
evil into good. None of them should have their goods confiscated to the
state, for the lots of the citizens ought always to continue the same
and equal.
Touching the exaction of penalties, when a man appears to have done
anything which deserves a fine, he shall pay the fine, if he have
anything in excess of the lot which is assigned to him; but more than
that he shall not pay. And to secure exactness, let the guardians of the
law refer to the registers, and inform the judges of the precise truth,
in order that none of the lots may go uncultivated for want of money.
But if any one seems to deserve a greater penalty, let him undergo a
long and public imprisonment and be dishonoured, unless some of his
friends are willing to be surety for him, and liberate him by assisting
him to pay the fine. No criminal shall go unpunished, not even for a
single offence, nor if he have fled the country; but let the penalty be
according to his desertsdeath, or bonds, or blows, or degrading places
of sitting or standing, or removal to some temple on the borders of the
land; or let him pay fines, as we said before. In cases of death, let
the judges be the guardians of the law, and a court selected by merit
from the last year’s magistrates. But how the causes are to be brought
into to court, how the summonses are to be served, the like, these
things may be left to the younger generation of legislators to
determine; the manner of voting we must determine ourselves.
Let the vote be given openly; but before they come to the vote let the
judges sit in order of seniority over against plaintiff and defendant,
and let all the citizens who can spare time hear and take a serious
interest in listening to such causes. First of all the plaintiff shall
make one speech, and then the defendant shall make another; and after
the speeches have been made the eldest judge shall begin to examine the
parties, and proceed to make an adequate enquiry into what has been
said; and after the oldest has spoken, the rest shall proceed in order
to examine either party as to what he finds defective in the evidence,
whether of statement or omission; and he who has nothing to ask shall
hand over the examination to another. And on so much of what has been
said as is to the purpose all the judges shall set their seals, and
place the writings on the altar of Hestia. On the next day they shall
meet again, and in like manner put their questions and go through the
cause, and again set their seals upon the evidence; and when they have
three times done this, and have had witnesses and evidence enough, they
shall each of them give a holy vote, after promising by Hestia that they
will decide justly and truly to the utmost of their power; and so they
shall put an end to the suit.
Next, after what relates to the Gods, follows what relates to the
dissolution of the state: Whoever by promoting a man to power enslaves
the laws, and subjects the city to factions, using violence and stirring
up sedition contrary to law, him we will deem the greatest enemy of the
whole state. But he who takes no part in such proceedings, and, being
one of the chief magistrates of the state, has no knowledge of the
treason, or, having knowledge of it, by reason of cowardice does not
interfere on behalf of his country, such an one we must consider nearly
as bad. Every man who is worth anything will inform the magistrates, and
bring the conspirator to trial for making a violent and illegal attempt
to change the government. The judges of such cases shall be the same as
of the robbers of temples; and let the whole proceeding be carried on in
the same way, and the vote of the majority condemn to death. But let
there be a general rule, that the disgrace and punishment of the father
is not to be visited on the children, except in the case of some one
whose father, grandfather, and great-grandfather have successively
undergone the penalty of death. Such persons the city shall send away
with all their possessions to the city and country of their ancestors,
retaining only and wholly their appointed lot. And out of the citizens
who have more than one son of not less than ten years of age, they shall
select ten whom their father or grandfather by the mother’s or father’s
side shall appoint, and let them send to Delphi the names of those who
are selected, and him whom the God chooses they shall establish as heir
of the house which has failed; and may he have better fortune than his
predecessors!
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Once more let there be a third general law respecting the judges
who are to give judgment, and the manner of conducting suits against
those who are tried on an accusation of treason; and as concerning the
remaining or departure of their descendants — there shall be one law for
all three, for the traitor, and the robber of temples, and the subverter
by violence of the laws of the state. For a thief, whether he steal much
or little, let there be one law, and one punishment for all alike: in
the first place, let him pay double the amount of the theft if he be
convicted, and if he have so much over and above the allotment; — if he
have not, he shall be bound until he pay the penalty, or persuade him
has obtained the sentence against him to forgive him. But if a person be
convicted of a theft against the state, then if he can persuade the
city, or if he will pay back twice the amount of the theft, he shall be
set free from his bonds.
Cle. What makes you say, Stranger, that a theft is all one, whether the
thief may have taken much or little, and either from sacred or secular
places — and these are not the only differences in thefts: seeing, then,
that they are of many kinds, ought not the legislator to adapt himself
to them, and impose upon them entirely different penalties?
Ath. Excellent. I was running on too fast, Cleinias, and you impinged
upon me, and brought me to my senses, reminding me of what, indeed, had
occurred to mind already, that legislation was never yet rightly worked
out, as I may say in passing. — Do you remember the image in which I
likened the men for whom laws are now made to slaves who are doctored by
slaves? For of this you may be very sure, that if one of those empirical
physicians, who practise medicine without science, were to come upon the
gentleman physician talking to his gentleman patient, and using the
language almost of philosophy, beginning at the beginning of the disease
and discoursing about the whole nature of the body, he would burst into
a hearty laugh — he would say what most of those who are called doctors
always have at their tongue’s end: Foolish fellow, he would say, you are
not healing the sick man, but you are educating him; and he does not
want to be made a doctor, but to get well.
Cle. And would he not be right?
Ath. Perhaps he would; and he might remark upon us that he who
discourses about laws, as we are now doing, is giving the citizens
education and not laws; that would be rather a telling observation.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. But we are fortunate.
Cle. In what way?
Ath. Inasmuch as we are not compelled to give laws, but we may take into
consideration every form of government, and ascertain what is best and
what is most needful, and how they may both be carried into execution;
and we may also, if we please, at this very moment choose what is best,
or, if we prefer, what is most necessary — which shall we do?
Cle. There is something ridiculous, Stranger, in our proposing such an
alternative as if we were legislators, simply bound under some great
necessity which cannot be deferred to the morrow. But we, as I may by
grace of Heaven affirm, like, gatherers of stones or beginners of some
composite work, may gather a heap of materials, and out of this, at our
leisure, select what is suitable for our projected construction. Let us
then suppose ourselves to be at leisure, not of necessity building, but
rather like men who are partly providing materials, and partly putting
them together. And we may truly say that some of our laws, like stones,
are already fixed in their places, and others lie at hand.
Ath. Certainly, in that case, Cleinias, our view of law will be more in
accordance with nature. For there is another matter affecting
legislators, which I must earnestly entreat you to consider.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. There are many writings to be found in cities, and among them
there, are composed by legislators as well as by other persons.
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. Shall we give heed rather to the writings of those others — poets
and the like, who either in metre or out of metre have recorded their
advice about the conduct of life, and not to the writings of
legislators? or shall we give heed to them above all?
Cle. Yes; to them far above all others.
Ath. And ought the legislator alone among writers to withhold his
opinion about the beautiful, the good, and the just, and not to teach
what they are, and how they are to be pursued by those who intend to be
happy?
Cle. Certainly not.
Ath. And is it disgraceful for Homer and Tyrtaeus and other poets to lay
down evil precepts in their writings respecting life and the pursuits of
men, but not so disgraceful for Lycurgus and Solon and others who were
legislators as well as writers? Is it not true that of all the writings
to be found in cities, those which relate to laws, when you unfold and
read them, ought to be by far the noblest and the best? and should not
other writings either agree with them, or if they disagree, be deemed
ridiculous? We should consider whether the laws of states ought not to
have the character of loving and wise parents, rather than of tyrants
and masters, who command and threaten, and, after writing their decrees
on walls, go their ways; and whether, in discoursing of laws, we should
not take the gentler view of them which may or may not be attainable —
at any rate, we will show our readiness to entertain such a view, and be
prepared to undergo whatever may be the result. And may the result be
good, and if God be gracious, it will be good!
Cle. Excellent; let us do as you say.
Ath. Then we will now consider accurately, as we proposed, what relates
to robbers of temples, and all kinds of thefts, and offences in general;
and we must not be annoyed if, in the course of legisla tion, we have
enacted some things, and have not made up our minds about some others;
for as yet we are not legislators, but we may soon be. Let us, if you
please, consider these matters.
Cle. By all means.
Ath. Concerning all things honourable and just, let us then endeavour to
ascertain how far we are consistent with ourselves, and how far we are
inconsistent, and how far the many, from whom at any rate we should
profess a desire to differ, agree and disagree among themselves.
Cle. What are the inconsistencies which you observe in us?
Ath. I will endeavour to explain. If I am not mistaken, we are all
agreed that justice, and just men and things and actions, are all fair,
and, if a person were to maintain that just men, even when they are
deformed in body, are still perfectly beautiful in respect of the
excellent justice of their minds, no one would say that there was any
inconsistency in this.
Cle. They would be quite right.
Ath. Perhaps; but let us consider further, that if all things which are
just are fair and honourable, in the term “all” we must include just
sufferings which are the correlatives of just actions.
Cle. And what is the inference?
Ath. The inference is, that a just action in partaking of the just
partakes also in the same degree of the fair and honourable.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And must not a suffering which partakes of the just principle be
admitted to be in the same degree fair and honourable, if the argument
is consistently carried out?
Cle. True.
Ath. But then if we admit suffering to be just and yet dishonourable,
and the term “dishonourable” is applied to justice, will not the just
and the honourable disagree?
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. A thing not difficult to understand; the laws which have been
already enacted would seem to announce principles directly opposed to
what we are saying.
Cle. To what?
Ath. We had enacted, if I am not mistaken, that the robber of temples,
and he who was the enemy of law and order, might justly be put to death,
and we were proceeding to make divers other enactments of a similar
nature. But we stopped short, because we saw that these sufferings are
infinite in number and degree, and that they are, at once, the most just
and also the most dishonourable of all sufferings. And if this be true,
are not the just and the honourable at one time all the same, and at
another time in the most diametrical opposition?
Cle. Such appears to be the case.
Ath. In this discordant and inconsistent fashion does the language of
the many rend asunder the honourable and just.
Cle. Very true, Stranger.
Ath. Then now, Cleinias, let us see how far we ourselves are consistent
about these matters.
Cle. Consistent in what?
Ath. I think that I have clearly stated in the former part of the
discussion, but if I did not, let me now state.
Cle. What?
Ath. That all bad men are always involuntarily bad; and from this must
proceed to draw a further inference.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. That the unjust man may be bad, but that he is bad against his
will.
Now that an action which is voluntary should be done involuntarily is a
contradiction; wherefore he who maintains that injustice is involuntary
will deem that the unjust does injustice involuntarily. I too admit that
all men do injustice involuntarily, and if any contentious or
disputatious person says that men are unjust against their will, and yet
that many do injustice willingly, I do not agree with him. But, then,
how can I avoid being inconsistent with myself, if you, Cleinias, and
you, Megillus, say to me — Well, Stranger, if all this be as you say,
how about legislating for the city of the Magnetes — shall we legislate
or not — what do you advise? Certainly we will, I should reply. Then
will you determine for them what are voluntary and what are involuntary
crimes, and shall we make the punishments greater of voluntary errors
and crimes and less for the involuntary? or shall we make the punishment
of all to be alike, under the idea that there is no such thing as
voluntary crime?
Cle. Very good, Stranger; and what shall we say in answer to these
objections?
Ath. That is a very fair question. In the first place, let us
Cle. Do what?
Ath. Let us remember what has been well said by us already, that our
ideas of justice are in the highest degree confused and contradictory.
Bearing this in mind, let us proceed to ask ourselves once more whether
we have discovered a way out of the difficulty. Have we ever determined
in what respect these two classes of actions differ from one another?
For in all states and by all legislators whatsoever, two kinds of
actions have been distinguished — the one, voluntary, the other,
involuntary; and they have legislated about them accordingly. But shall
this new word of ours, like an ora
Cle. of God, be only spoken, and get away without giving any explanation
or verification of itself? How can a word not understood be the basis of
legislation? Impossible. Before proceeding to legislate, then, we must
prove that they are two, and what is the difference between them, that
when we impose the penalty upon either, every one may understand our
proposal, and be able in some way to judge whether the penalty is fitly
or unfitly inflicted.
Cle. I agree with you, Stranger; for one of two things is certain:
either we must not say that all unjust acts are involuntary, or we must
show the meaning and truth of this statement.
Ath. Of these two alternatives, the one is quite intolerable — not to
speak what I believe to be the truth would be to me unlawful and unholy.
But if acts of injustice cannot be divided into voluntary and
involuntary, I must endeavour to find some other distinction between
them.
Cle. Very true, Stranger; there cannot be two opinions among us upon
that point.
Ath. Reflect, then; there are hurts of various kinds done by the
citizens to one another in the intercourse of life, affording plentiful
examples both of the voluntary and involuntary.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. I would not have any one suppose that all these hurts are injuries,
and that these injuries are of two kinds — one, voluntary, and the
other, involuntary; for the involuntary hurts of all men are quite as
many and as great as the voluntary? And please to consider whether I am
right or quite wrong in what I am going to say; for I deny, Cleinias and
Megillus, that he who harms another involuntarily does him an injury
involuntarily, nor should I legislate about such an act under the idea
that I am legislating for an involuntary injury. But I should rather say
that such a hurt, whether great or small, is not an injury at all; and,
on the other hand, if I am right, when a benefit is wrongly conferred,
the author of the benefit may often be said to injure. For I maintain, O
my friends, that the mere giving or taking away of anything is not to be
described either as just or unjust; but the legislator has to consider
whether mankind do good or harm to one another out of a just principle
and intention. On the distinction between injustice and hurt he must fix
his eye; and when there is hurt, he must, as far as he can, make the
hurt good by law, and save that which is ruined, and raise up that which
is fallen, and make that which is dead or wounded whole.
And when compensation has been given for injustice, the law must always
seek to win over the doers and sufferers of the several hurts from
feelings of enmity to those of friendship.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Then as to unjust hurts (and gains also, supposing the injustice to
bring gain), of these we may heal as many as are capable of being
healed, regarding them as diseases of the soul; and the cure of
injustice will take the following direction.
Cle. What direction?
Ath. When any one commits any injustice, small or great, the law will
admonish and compel him either never at all to do the like again, or
never voluntarily, or at any rate in a far less degree; and he must in
addition pay for the hurt. Whether the end is to be attained by word or
action, with pleasure or pain, by giving or taking away privileges, by
means of fines or gifts, or in whatsoever way the law shall proceed to
make a man hate injustice, and love or not hate the nature of the just —
this is quite the noblest work of law. But if the legislator sees any
one who is incurable, for him he will appoint a law and a penalty. He
knows quite well that to such men themselves there is no profit in the
continuance of their lives, and that they would do a double good to the
rest of mankind if they would take their departure, inasmuch as they
would be an example to other men not to offend, and they would relieve
the city of bad citizens. In such cases, and in such cases only, the
legislator ought to inflict death as the punishment of offences.
Cle. What you have said appears to me to be very reasonable, but will
you favour me by stating a little more clearly the difference between
hurt and injustice, and the various complications of the voluntary and
involuntary which enter into them?
Ath. I will endeavour to do as you wish: Concerning the soul, thus much
would be generally said and allowed, that one element in her nature is
passion, which may be described either as a state or a part of her, and
is hard to be striven against and contended with, and by irrational
force overturns many things.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. And pleasure is not the same with passion, but has an opposite
power, working her will by persuasion and by the force of deceit in all
things.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. A man may truly say that ignorance is a third cause of crimes.
Ignorance, however, may be conveniently divided by the legislator into
two sorts: there is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter
offences, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of
wisdom; and he who is under the influence of the latter fancies that he
knows all about matters of which he knows nothing. This second kind of
ignorance, when possessed of power and strength, will be held by the
legislator to be the source of great and monstrous times, but when
attended with weakness, will only result in the errors of children and
old men; and these he will treat as errors, and will make laws
accordingly for those who commit them, which will be the mildest and
most merciful of all laws.
Cle. You are perfectly right.
Ath. We all of us remark of one man that he is superior to pleasure and
passion, and of another that he is inferior to them; and this is true.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. But no one was ever yet heard to say that one of us is superior and
another inferior to ignorance.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. We are speaking of motives which incite men to the fulfilment of
their will; although an individual may be often drawn by them in
opposite directions at the same time.
Cle. Yes, often.
Ath. And now I can define to you clearly, and without ambiguity, what I
mean by the just and unjust, according to my notion of them: When anger
and fear, and pleasure and pain, and jealousies and desires, tyrannize
over the soul, whether they do any harm or not — I call all this
injustice. But when the opinion of the best, in whatever part of human
nature states or individuals may suppose that to dwell, has dominion in
the soul and orders the life of every man, even if it be sometimes
mistaken, yet what is done in accordance therewith, the principle in
individuals which obeys this rule, and is best for the whole life of
man, is to be called just; although the hurt done by mistake is thought
by many to be involuntary injustice. Leaving the question of names,
about which we are not going to quarrel, and having already delineated
three sources of error, we may begin by recalling them somewhat more
vividly to our memory: One of them was of the painful sort, which we
denominate anger and fear.
Cle. Quite right.
Ath. There was a second consisting of pleasures and desires, and a third
of hopes, which aimed at true opinion about the best. The latter being
subdivided into three, we now get five sources of actions; and for these
five we will make laws of two kinds.
Cle. What are the two kinds?
Ath. There is one kind of actions done by violence and in the light of
day, and another kind of actions which are done in darkness and with
secret deceit, or sometimes both with violence and deceit; the laws
concerning these last ought to have a character of severity.
Cle. Naturally.
Ath. And now let us return from this digression and complete the work of
legislation. Laws have been already enacted by us concerning the robbers
of the Gods, and concerning traitors, and also concerning those who
corrupt the laws for the purpose of subverting the government. A man may
very likely commit some of these crimes, either in a state of madness or
when affected by disease, or under the influence of extreme old age, or
in a fit of childish wantonness, himself no better than a child. And if
this be made evident to the judges elected to try the cause, on the
appeal of the criminal or his advocate, and he be judged to have been in
this state when he committed the offence, he shall simply pay for the
hurt which he may have done to another; but he shall be exempt from
other penalties, unless he have slain some one, and have on his hands
the stain of blood. And in that case he shall go to another land and
country, and there dwell for a year; and if he return before the
expiration of the time which the law appoints, or even set his foot at
all on his native land, he shall be bound by the guardians of the law in
the public prison for two years, and then go free.
Having begun to speak of homicide, let us endeavour to lay down laws
concerning every different kind of homicides, and, first of all,
concerning violent and involuntary homicides. If any one in an athletic
contest, and at the public games, involuntarily kills a friend, and he
dies either at the time or afterwards of the blows which he has
received; or if the like misfortune happens to any one in war, or
military exercises, or mimic contests. of which the magistrates enjoin
the practice, whether with or without arms, when he has been purified
according to the law brought from Delphi relating to these matters, he
shall be innocent. And so in the case of physicians: if their patient
dies against their will, they shall be held guiltless by the law. And if
one slay another with his own hand, but unintentionally, whether he be
unarmed or have some instrument or dart in his hand; or if he kill him
by administering food or drink or by the application of fire or cold, or
by suffocating him, whether he do the deed by his own hand, or by the
agency of others, he shall be deemed the agent, and shall suffer one of
the following penalties: If he kill the slave of another in the belief
that he is his own, he shall bear the master of the dead man harmless
from loss, or shall pay a penalty of twice the value of the dead man,
which the judges shall assess; but purifications must be used greater
and more numerous than for those who committed homicide at the
games;what they are to be, the interpreters whom the God appoints shall
be authorized to declare. And if a man kills his own slave, when he has
been purified according to laws he shall be quit of the homicide. And if
a man kills a freeman unintentionally, he shall undergo the same
purification as he did who killed the slave. But let him not forget also
a tale of olden time, which is to this effect: He who has suffered a
violent end, when newly dead, if he has had the soul of a freeman in
life, is angry with the author of his death; and being himself full of
fear and panic by reason of his violent end, when he sees his murderer
walking about in his own accustomed haunts, he is stricken with terror
and becomes disordered, and this disorder of his, aided by the guilty
recollection of is communicated by him with overwhelming force to the
murderer and his deeds. Wherefore also the murderer must go out of the
way of his victim for the entire period of a year, and not himself be
found in any spot which was familiar to him throughout the country. And
if the dead man be a stranger, the homicide shall be kept from the
country of the stranger during a like period. If any one voluntarily
obeys this law, the next of kin to the deceased, seeing all that has
happened, shall take pity on him, and make peace with him, and show him
all gentleness. But if any one is disobedient, either ventures to go to
any of the temples and sacrifice unpurified, or will not continue in
exile during the appointed time, the next of kin to the deceased shall
proceed against him for murder; and if he be convicted, every part of
his punishment shall be doubled.
And if the next of kin do not proceed against the perpetrator of the
crime, then the pollution shall be deemed to fall upon his own head; —
the murdered man will fix the guilt upon his kinsman, and he who has a
mind to proceed against him may compel him to be absent from his country
during five years, according to law. If a stranger unintentionally kill
a stranger who is dwelling in the city, he who likes shall prosecute the
cause according to the same rules.
If he be a metic, let him be absent for a year, or if he be an entire
stranger, in addition to the purification, whether he have slain a
stranger, or a metic, or a citizen, he shall be banished for life from
the country which is in possession of our laws. And if he return
contrary to law, let the guardians of the law punish him with death; and
let them hand over his property, if he have any, to him who is next of
kin to the sufferer. And if he be wrecked, and driven on the coast
against his will, he shall take up his abode on the seashore, wetting
his feet in the sea, and watching for an opportunity of sailing; but if
he be brought by land, and is not his own master, let the magistrate
whom he first comes across in the city, release him and send him
unharmed over the border.
If any one slays a freeman with his own hand and the deed be done in
passion, in the case of such actions we must begin by making a
distinction. For a deed is done from passion either when men suddenly,
and without intention to kill, cause the death of another by blows and
the like on a momentary impulse, and are sorry for the deed immediately
afterwards; or again, when after having been insulted in deed or word,
men pursue revenge, and kill a person intentionally, and are not sorry
for the act. And, therefore, we must assume that these homicides are of
two kinds, both of them arising from passion, which may be justly said
to be in a mean between the voluntary and involuntary; at the same time,
they are neither of them anything more than a likeness or shadow of
either. He who treasures up his anger, and avenges himself, not
immediately and at the moment, but with insidious design, and after an
interval, is like the voluntary; but he who does not treasure up his
anger, and takes vengeance on the instant, and without malice prepense,
approaches to the involuntary; and yet even he is not altogether
involuntary, but only the image or shadow of the involuntary; wherefore
about homicides committed in hot blood, there is a difficulty in
determining whether in legislating we shall reckon them as voluntary or
as partly involuntary. The best and truest view is to regard them
respectively as likenesses only of the voluntary and involuntary, and to
distinguish them accordingly as they are done with or without
premeditation. And we should make the penalties heavier for those who
commit homicide with angry premeditation, and lighter for those who do
not premeditate, but smite upon the instant; for that which is like a
greater evil should be punished more severely, and that which is like a
less evil should be punished less severely: this shall be the rule of
our laws.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Let us proceed: If any one slays a free man with his own hand, and
the deed be done in a moment of anger, and without premeditation, let
the offender suffer in other respects as the involuntary homicide would
have suffered, and also undergo an exile of two years, that he may learn
to school his passions. But he who slays another from passion, yet with
premeditation, shall in other respects suffer as the former; and to this
shall be added an exile of three instead of two years — his punishment
is to be longer because his passion is greater.
The manner of their return shall be on this wise: (and here the law has
difficulty in determining exactly; for in some cases the murderer who is
judged by the law to be the worse may really be the less cruel, and he
who is judged the less cruel may be really the worse, and may have
executed the murder in a more savage manner, whereas the other may have
been gentler. But in general the degrees of guilt will be such as we
have described them. Of all these things the guardians of the law must
take cognisance): When a homicide of either kind has completed his term
of exile, the guardians shall send twelve judges to the borders of the
land; these during the interval shall have informed themselves of the
actions of the criminals, and they shall judge respecting their pardon
and reception; and the homicides shall abide by their judgment.
But if after they have returned home, any one of them in a moment of
anger repeats the deed, let him be an exile, and return no more; or if
he returns, let him suffer as the stranger was to suffer in a similar
case. He who kills his own slave shall undergo a purificaon, but if he
kills the slave of another in anger, he shall pay twice the amount of
the loss to his owner. And if any homicide is disobedient to the law,
and without purification pollutes the agora, or the games, or the
temples, he who pleases may bring to trial the next of kin to the dead
man for permitting him, and the murderer with him, and may compel the
one to exact and the other to suffer a double amount of fines and
purifications; and the accuser shall himself receive the fine in
accordance with the law.
If a slave in a fit of passion kills his master, the kindred of the
deceased man may do with the murderer (provided only they do not spare
his life) whatever they please, and they will be pure; or if he kills a
freeman, who is not his master, the owner shall give up the slave to the
relatives of the deceased, and they shall be under an obligation to put
him to death, but this may be done in any manner which they please.
And if (which is a rare occurrence, but does sometimes happen) a father
or a mother in a moment of passion slays a son or daughter by blows, or
some other violence, the slayer shall undergo the same purification as
in other cases, and be exiled during three years; but when the exile
returns the wife shall separate from the husband, and the husband from
the wife, and they shall never afterwards beget children together, or
live under the same roof, or partake of the same sacred rites with those
whom they have deprived of a child or of a brother. And he who is
impious and disobedient in such a case shall be brought to trial for
impiety by any one who pleases. If in a fit of anger a husband kills his
wedded wife, or the wife her husband, the slayer shall undergo the same
purification, and the term of exile shall be three years. And when he
who has committed any such crime returns, let him have no communication
in sacred rites with his children, neither let him sit at the same table
with them, and the father or son who disobeys shall be liable to be
brought to trial for impiety by any one who pleases. If a brother or a
sister in a fit of passion kills a brother or a sister, they shall
undergo purification and exile, as was the case with parents who killed
their offspring: they shall not come under the same roof, or share in
the sacred rites of those whom they have deprived of their brethren, or
of their children.
And he who is disobedient shall be justly liable to the law concerning
impiety, which relates to these matters. If any one is so violent in his
passion against his parents, that in the madness of his anger he dares
to kill one of them, if the murdered person before dying freely forgives
the murderer, let him undergo the purification which is assigned to
those who have been guilty of involuntary homicide, and do as they do,
and he shall be pure. But if he be not acquitted, the perpetrator of
such a deed shall be amenable to many laws; — he shall be amenable to
the extreme punishments for assault, and impiety, and robbing of
temples, for he has robbed his parent of life; and if a man could be
slain more than once, most justly would he who in a fit of passion has
slain father or mother, undergo many deaths. How can he, whom, alone of
all men, even in defence of his life, and when about to suffer death at
the hands of his parents, no law will allow to kill his father or his
mother who are the authors of his being, and whom the legislator will
command to endure any extremity rather than do this — how can he, I say,
lawfully receive any other punishment? Let death then be the appointed
punishment of him who in a fit of passion slays his father or his
mother. But if brother kills brother in a civil broil, or under other
like circumstances, if the other has begun, and he only defends himself,
let him be free from guilt, as he would be if he had slain an enemy; and
the same rule will apply if a citizen kill a citizen, or a stranger a
stranger. Or if a stranger kill a citizen or a citizen a stranger in
self-defence, let him be free from guilt in like manner; and so in the
case of a slave who has killed a slave; but if a slave have killed a
freeman in self-defence, let him be subject to the same law as he who
has killed a father; and let the law about the remission of penalties in
the case of parricide apply equally to every other remission. Whenever
any sufferer of his own accord remits the guilt of homicide to another,
under the idea that his act was involuntary, let the perpetrator of the
deed undergo a purification and remain in exile for a year, according to
law.
Enough has been said of murders violent and involuntary and committed in
passion: we have now to speak of voluntary crimes done with injustice of
every kind and with premeditation, through the influence of pleasures,
and desires, and jealousies.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Let us first speak, as far as we are able, of their various kinds.
The greatest cause of them is lust, which gets the mastery of the soul
maddened by desire; and this is most commonly found to exist where the
passion reigns which is strongest and most prevalent among mass of
mankind: I mean where the power of wealth breeds endless desires of
never-to-be-satisfied acquisition, originating in natural disposition,
and a miserable want of education. Of this want of education, the false
praise of wealth which is bruited about both among Hellenes and
barbarians is the cause; they deem that to be the first of goods which
in reality is only the third. And in this way they wrong both posterity
and themselves, for nothing can be nobler and better than that the truth
about wealth should be spoken in all states — namely, that riches are
for the sake of the body, as the body is for the sake of the soul. They
are good, and wealth is intended by nature to be for the sake of them,
and is therefore inferior to them both, and third in order of
excellence. This argument teaches us that he who would be happy ought
not to seek to be rich, or rather he should seek to be rich justly and
temperately, and then there would be no murders in states requiring to
be purged away by other murders. But now, as I said at first, avarice is
the chiefest cause and source of the worst trials for voluntary
homicide. A second cause is ambition: this creates jealousies, which are
troublesome companions, above all to the jealous man himself, and in a
less degree to the chiefs of the state. And a third cause is cowardly
and unjust fear, which has been the occasion of many murders. When a man
is doing or has done something which he desires that no one should know
him to be doing or to have done, he will take the life of those who are
likely to inform of such things, if he have no other means of getting
rid of them. Let this be said as a prelude concerning crimes of violence
in general; and I must not omit to mention a tradition which is firmly
believed by many, and has been received by them from those who are
learned in the mysteries: they say that such deeds will be punished in
the world below, and also that when the perpetrators return to this
world they will pay the natural penalty which is due to the sufferer,
and end their lives in like manner by the hand of another. If he who is
about to commit murder believes this, and is made by the mere prelude to
dread such a penalty, there is no need to proceed with the proclamation
of the law. But if he will not listen, let the following law be declared
and registered against him: Whoever shall wrongfully and of design slay
with his own hand any of his kinsmen, shall in the first place be
deprived of legal privileges; and he shall not pollute the temples, or
the agora, or the harbours, or any other place of meeting, whether he is
forbidden of men or not; for the law, which represents the whole state,
forbids him, and always is and will be in the attitude of forbidding
him.
And if a cousin or nearer relative of the deceased, whether on the male
or female side, does not prosecute the homicide when he ought, and have
him proclaimed an outlaw, he shall in the first place be involved in the
pollution, and incur the hatred of the Gods, even as the curse of the
law stirs up the voices of men against him; and in the second place he
shall be liable to be prosecuted by any one who is willing to inflict
retribution on behalf of the dead. And he who would avenge a murder
shall observe all the precautionary ceremonies of lavation, and any
others which the God commands in cases of this kind. Let him have
proclamation made, and then go forth and compel the perpetrator to
suffer the execution of justice according to the law. Now the legislator
may easily show that these things must be accomplished by prayers and
sacrifices to certain Gods, who are concerned with the prevention of
murders in states. But who these Gods are, and what should be the true
manner of instituting such trials with due regard to religion, the
guardians of the law, aided by the interpreters, and the prophets, and
the God, shall determine, and when they have determined let them carry
on the prosecution at law. The cause shall have the same judges who are
appointed to decide in the case of those who plunder temples. Let him
who is convicted be punished with death, and let him not be buried in
the country of the murdered man, for this would be shameless as well as
impious. But if he fly and will not stand his trial, let him fly for
ever; or, if he set foot anywhere on any part of the murdered man’s
country, let any relation of the deceased, or any other citizen who may
first happen to meet with him, kill him with impunity, or bind and
deliver him to those among the judges of the case who are magistrates,
that they may put him to death. And let the prosecutor demand surety of
him whom he prosecutes; three sureties sufficient in the opinion of the
magistrates who try the cause shall be provided by him, and they shall
undertake to produce him at the trial. But if he be unwilling or unable
to provide sureties, then the magistrates shall take him and keep him in
bonds, and produce him at the day of trial.
If a man do not commit a murder with his own hand, but contrives the
death of another, and is the author of the deed in intention and design,
and he continues to dwell in the city, having his soul not pure of the
guilt of murder, let him be tried in the same way, except in what
relates to the sureties; and also, if he be found guilty, his body after
execution may have burial in his native land, but in all other respects
his case shall be as the former; and whether a stranger shall kill a
citizen, or a citizen a stranger, or a slave a slave, there shall be no
difference as touching murder by one’s own hand or by contrivance,
except in the matter of sureties; and these, as has been said, shall be
required of the actual murderer only, and he who brings the accusation
shall bind them over at the time. If a slave be convicted of slaying a
freeman voluntarily, either by his own hand or by contrivance, let the
public executioner take him in the direction of the sepulchre, to a
place whence he can see the tomb of the dead man, and inflict upon him
as many stripes as the person who caught him orders, and if he survive,
let him put him to death. And if any one kills a slave who has done no
wrong, because he is afraid that he may inform of some base and evil
deeds of his own, or for any similar reason, in such a case let him pay
the penalty of murder, as he would have done if he had slain a citizen.
There are things about which it is terrible and unpleasant to legislate,
but impossible not to legislate. If, for example, there should be
murders of kinsmen, either perpetrated by the hands of kinsmen, or by
their contrivance, voluntary and purely malicious, which most often
happen in ill-regulated and ill-educated states, and may perhaps occur
even in a country where a man would not expect to find them, we must
repeat once more the tale which we narrated a little while ago, in the
hope that he who hears us will be the more disposed to abstain
voluntarily on these grounds from murders which are utterly abominable.
For the myth, or saying, or whatever we ought to call it, has been
plainly set forth by priests of old; they have pronounced that the
justice which guards and avenges the blood of kindred, follows the law
of retaliation, and ordains that he who has done any murderous act
should of necessity suffer that which he has done. He who has slain a
father shall himself be slain at some time or other by his children — if
a mother, he shall of necessity take a woman’s nature, and lose his life
at the hands of his offspring in after ages; for where the blood of a
family has been polluted there is no other purification, nor can the
pollution be washed out until the homicidal soul which the deed has
given life for life, and has propitiated and laid to sleep the wrath of
the whole family. These are the retributions of Heaven, and by such
punishments men should be deterred.
But if they are not deterred, and any one should be incited by some
fatality to deprive his father or mother, or brethren, or children, of
life voluntarily and of purpose, for him the earthly lawgiver legislates
as follows: There shall be the same proclamations about outlawry, and
there shall be the same sureties which have been enacted in the former
cases. But in his case, if he be convicted, the servants of the judges
and the magistrates shall slay him at an appointed place without the
city where three ways meet, and there expose his body naked, and each of
the magistrates on behalf of the whole city shall take a stone and cast
it upon the head of the dead man, and so deliver the city from
pollution; after that, they shall bear him to the borders of the land,
and cast him forth unburied, according to law. And what shall he suffer
who slays him who of all men, as they say, is his own best friend? I
mean the suicide, who deprives himself by violence of his appointed
share of life, not because the law of the state requires him, nor yet
under the compulsion of some painful and inevitable misfortune which has
come upon him, nor because he has had to suffer from irremediable and
intolerable shame, but who from sloth or want of manliness imposes upon
himself an unjust penalty. For him, what ceremonies there are to be of
purification and burial God knows, and about these the next of kin
should enquire of the interpreters and of the laws thereto relating, and
do according to their injunctions. They who meet their death in this way
shall be buried alone, and none shall be laid by their side; they shall
be buried ingloriously in the borders of the twelve portions the land,
in such places as are uncultivated and nameless, and no column or
inscription shall mark the place of their interment. And if a beast of
burden or other animal cause the death of any one, except in the case of
anything of that kind happening to a competitor in the public contests,
the kinsmen of the deceased shall prosecute the slayer for murder, and
the wardens of the country, such, and so many as the kinsmen appoint,
shall try the cause, and let the beast when condemned be slain by them,
and let them cast it beyond the borders. And if any lifeless thing
deprive a man of life, except in the case of a thunderbolt or other
fatal dart sent from the Godswhether a man is killed by lifeless
objects, falling upon him, or by his falling upon them, the nearest of
kin shall appoint the nearest neighbour to be a judge, and thereby
acquit himself and the whole family of guilt. And he shall cast forth
the guilty thing beyond the border, as has been said about the animals.
If a man is found dead, and his murderer be unknown, and after a
diligent search cannot be detected, there shall be the same proclamation
as in the previous cases, and the same interdict on the murderer; and
having proceeded against him, they shall proclaim in the agora by a
herald, that he who has slain such and such a person, and has been
convicted of murder, shall not set his foot in the temples, nor at all
in the country of the murdered man, and if he appears and is discovered,
he shall die, and be cast forth unburied beyond the border. Let this one
law then be laid down by us about murder; and let cases of this sort be
so regarded.
And now let us say in what cases and under what circumstances the
murderer is rightly free from guilt: If a man catch a thief coming, into
his house by night to steal, and he take and kill him, or if he slay a
footpad in self-defence, he shall be guiltless. And any one who does
violence to a free woman or a youth, shall be slain with impunity by the
injured person, or by his or her father or brothers or sons. If a man
find his wife suffering violence, he may kill the violator, and be
guiltless in the eye of the law; or if a person kill another in warding
off death from his father or mother or children or brethren or wife who
are doing no wrong, he shall assuredly be guiltless.
Thus much as to the nurture and education of the living soul of man,
having which, he can, and without which, if he unfortunately be without
them, he cannot live; and also concerning the punishments: which are to
be inflicted for violent deaths, let thus much be enacted. Of the
nurture and education of the body we have spoken before, and next in
order we have to speak of deeds of violence, voluntary and involuntary,
which men do to one another; these we will now distinguish, as far as we
are able, according to their nature and number, and determine what will
be the suitable penalties of each, and so assign to them their proper
place in the series of our enactments. The poorest legislator will have
no difficulty in determining that wounds and mutilations arising out of
wounds should follow next in order after deaths. Let wounds be divided
as homicides were divided — into those which are involuntary, and which
are given in passion or from fear, and those inflicted voluntarily and
with premeditation. Concerning all this, we must make some such
proclamation as the following: Mankind must have laws, and conform to
them, or their life would be as bad as that of the most savage beast.
And the reason of this is that no man’s nature is able to know what is
best for human society; or knowing, always able and willing to do what
is best. In the first place, there is a difficulty in apprehending that
the true art or politics is concerned, not with private but with public
good (for public good binds together states, but private only distracts
them); and that both the public and private good as well of individuals
as of states is greater when the state and not the individual is first
considered. In the second place, although a person knows in the abstract
that this is true, yet if he be possessed of absolute and irresponsible
power, he will never remain firm in his principles or persist in
regarding the public good as primary in the state, and the private good
as secondary. Human nature will be always drawing him into avarice and
selfishness, avoiding pain and pursuing Pleasure without any reason, and
will bring these to the front, obscuring the juster and better; and so
working darkness in his soul will at last fill with evils both him and
the whole city. For if a man were born so divinely gifted that he could
naturally apprehend the truth, he would have no need of laws to rule
over him; for there is no law or order which is above knowledge, nor can
mind, without impiety, be deemed the subject or slave of any man, but
rather the lord of all. I speak of mind, true and free, and in harmony
with nature. But then there is no such mind anywhere, or at least not
much; and therefore we must choose law and order, which are second best.
These look at things as they exist for the most part only, and are
unable to survey the whole of them. And therefore I have spoken as I
have.
And now we will determine what penalty he ought to pay or suffer who has
hurt or wounded another. Any one may easily imagine the questions which
have to be asked in all such cases: What did he wound, or whom, or how,
or when? for there are innumerable particulars of this sort which
greatly vary from one another. And to allow courts of law to determine
all these things, or not to determine any of them, is alike impossible.
There is one particular which they must determine in all cases — the
question of fact.
And then, again, that the legislator should not permit them to determine
what punishment is to be inflicted in any of these cases, but should
himself decide about, of them, small or great, is next to impossible.
Cle. Then what is to be the inference?
Ath. The inference is, that some things should be left to courts of law;
others the legislator must decide for himself.
Cle. And what ought the legislator to decide, and what ought he to leave
to courts of law?
Ath. I may reply, that in a state in which the courts are bad and mute,
because the judges conceal their opinions and decide causes
clandestinely; or what is worse, when they are disorderly and noisy, as
in a theatre, clapping or hooting in turn this or that orator — I say
that then there is a very serious evil, which affects the whole state.
Unfortunate is the necessity of having to legislate for such courts, but
where the necessity exists, the legislator should only allow them to
ordain the penalties for the smallest offences; if the state for which
he is legislating be of this character, he must take most matters into
his own hands and speak distinctly. But when a state has good courts,
and the judges are well trained and scrupulously tested, the
determination of the penalties or punishments which shall be inflicted
on the guilty may fairly and with advantage be left to them.
And we are not to be blamed for not legislating concerning all that
large class of matters which judges far worse educated than ours would
be able to determine, assigning to each offence what is due both to the
perpetrator and to the sufferer. We believe those for whom we are
legislating to be best able to judge, and therefore to them the greater
part may be left. At the same time, as I have often said, we should
exhibit to the judges, as we have done, the outline and form of the
punishments to be inflicted, and then they will not transgress the just
rule. That was an excellent practice, which we observed before, and
which now that we are resuming the work of legislation, may with
advantage be repeated by us.
Let the enactment about wounding be in the following terms: If anyone
has a purpose and intention to slay another who is not his enemy, and
whom the law does not permit him to slay, and he wounds him, but is
unable to kill him, he who had the intent and has wounded him is not to
be pitied — he deserves no consideration, but should be regarded as a
murderer and be tried for murder. Still having respect to the fortune
which has in a manner favoured him, and to the providence which in pity
to him and to the wounded man saved the one from a fatal blow, and the
other from an accursed fate and calamity — as a thank-offering to this
deity, and in order not to oppose his will — in such a case the law will
remit the punishment of death, and only compel the offender to emigrate
to a neighbouring city for the rest of his life, where he shall remain
in the enjoyment of all his possessions. But if he have injured the
wounded man, he shall make such compensation for the injury as the court
deciding the cause shall assess, and the same judges shall decide who
would have decided if the man had died of his wounds. And if a child
intentionally wound his parents, or a servant his master, death shall be
the penalty. And if a brother ora sister intentionally wound a brother
or a sister, and is found guilty, death shall be the penalty. And if a
husband wound a wife, or a wife a husband, with intent to kill, let him
or her undergo perpetual exile; if they have sons or daughters who are
still young, the guardians shall take care of their property, and have
charge of the children as orphans. If their sons are grown up, they
shall be under no obligation to support the exiled parent, but they
shall possess the property themselves. And if he who meets with such a
misfortune has no children, the kindred of the exiled man to the degree
of sons of cousins, both on the male and female side, shall meet
together, and after taking counsel with the guardians of the and the
priests, shall appoint a 5040th citizen to be the heir of the house,
considering and reasoning that no house of all the 5040 belongs to the
inhabitant or to the whole family, but is the public and private
property of the state. Now the state should seek to have its houses as
holy and happy as possible. And if any one of the houses be unfortunate,
and stained with impiety, and the owner leave no posterity, but dies
unmarried, or married and childless, having suffered death as the
penalty of murder or some other crime committed against the Gods or
against his fellow-citizens, of which death is the penalty distinctly
laid down in the law; or if any of the citizens be in perpetual exile,
and also childless, that house shall first of all be purified and
undergo expiation according to law; and then let the kinsmen of the
house, as we were just now saying, and the guardians of the law, meet
and consider what family there is in the state which is of the highest
repute for virtue and also for good fortune, in which there are a number
of sons; from that family let them take one and introduce him to the
father and forefathers of the dead man as their son, and, for the sake
of the omen, let him be called so, that he may be the continuer of their
family, the keeper of their hearth, and the minister of their sacred
rites with better fortune than his father had; and when they have made
this supplication, they shall make him heir according to law, and the
offending person they shall leave nameless and childless and portionless
when calamities such as these overtake him.
Now the boundaries of some things do not touch one another, but there is
a borderland which comes in between, preventing them from touching. And
we were saying that actions done from passion are of this nature, and
come in between the voluntary and involuntary. If a person be convicted
of having inflicted wounds in a passion, in the first place he shall pay
twice the amount of the injury, if the wound be curable, or, if
incurable, four times the amount of the injury; or if the wound be
curable, and at the same time cause great and notable disgrace to the
wounded person, he shall pay fourfold. And whenever any one in wounding
another injures not only the sufferer, but also the city, and makes him
incapable of defending his country against the enemy, he, besides the
other penalties, shall pay a penalty for the loss which the state has
incurred. And the penalty shall be, that in addition to his own times of
service, he shall serve on behalf of the disabled person, and shall take
his place in war; or, if he refuse, he shall be liable to be convicted
by law of refusal to serve. The compensation for the injury, whether to
be twofold or threefold or fourfold, shall be fixed by the judges who
convict him. And if, in like manner, a brother wounds a brother, the
parents and kindred of either sex, including the children of cousins,
whether on the male or female side, shall meet, and when they have
judged the cause, they shall entrust the assessment of damages to the
parents, as is natural; and if the estimate be disputed, then the
kinsmen on the male side shall make the estimate, or if they cannot,
they shall commit the matter to the guardians of the law. And when
similar charges of wounding are brought by children against their
parents, those who are more than sixty years of age, having children of
their own, not adopted, shall be required to decide; and if any one is
convicted, they shall determine whether he or she ought to die, or
suffer some other punishment either greater than death, or, at any rate,
not much less. A kinsman of the offender shall not be allowed to judge
the cause, not even if he be of the age which is prescribed by the law.
If a slave in a fit of anger wound a freeman, the owner of the slave
shall give him up to the wounded man, who may do as he pleases with him,
and if be not give him up he shall himself make good the injury. And if
any one says that the slave and the wounded man are conspiring together,
let him argue the point, and if he is cast, he shall pay for the wrong
three times over, but if he gains his case, the freeman who conspired
with the slave shall reliable to an action for kidnapping. And if any
one unintentionally wounds another he shall simply pay for the harm, for
no legislator is able to control chance. In such a case the judges shall
be the same as those who are appointed in the case of children suing
their parents; and they shall estimate the amount of the injury.
All the preceding injuries and every kind of assault are deeds of
violence; and every man, woman, or child ought to consider that the
elder has the precedence of the younger in honour, both among the Gods
and also among men who would live in security and happiness. Wherefore
it is a foul thing and hateful to the Gods to see an elder man assaulted
by a younger in the city; and it is reasonable that a young man when
struck by an elder should lightly endure his anger, laying up in store
for himself a like honour when he is old. Let this be the law: Every one
shall reverence his elder in word and deed; he shall respect any one who
is twenty years older than himself, whether male or female, regarding
him or her as his father or mother; and he shall abstain from laying
hands on any one who is of an age to have been his father or his mother,
out of reverence to the Gods who preside over birth; similarly he shall
keep his hands from a stranger, whether he be an old inhabitant or newly
arrived; he shall not venture to correct such an one by blows, either as
the aggressor or in self-defence. If he thinks that some stranger has
struck him out of wantonness or insolence, and ought to be punished, he
shall take him to the wardens of the city, but let him not strike him,
that the stranger may be kept far away from the possibility of lifting
up his hand against a citizen, and let the wardens of the city take the
offender and examine him, not forgetting their duty to the God of
Strangers, and in case the stranger appears to have struck the citizen
unjustly, let them inflict upon him as many blows with the scourge as he
has himself inflicted, and quell his presumption.
But if he be innocent, they shall threaten and rebuke the man who
arrested him, and let them both go. If a person strikes another of the
same age or somewhat older than himself, who has no children, whether he
be an old man who strikes an old man or a young man who strikes a young
man, let the person struck defend himself in the natural way without a
weapon and with his hands only. He who, being more than forty years of
age, dares to fight with another, whether he be the aggressor or in self
defence, shall be regarded as rude and ill-mannered and slavish; — this
will be a disgraceful punishment, and therefore suitable to him. The
obedient nature will readily yield to such exhortations, but the
disobedient, who heeds not the prelude, shall have the law ready for
him: If any man smite another who is older than himself, either by
twenty or by more years, in the first place, he who is at hand, not
being younger than the combatants, nor their equal in age, shall
separate them, or be disgraced according to law; but if he be the equal
in age of the person who is struck or younger, he shall defend the
person injured as he would a brother or father or still older relative.
Further, let him who dares to smite an elder be tried for assault, as I
have said, and if he be found guilty, let him be imprisoned for a period
of not less than a year, or if the judges approve of a longer period,
their decision shall be final. But if a stranger or metic smite one who
is older by twenty years or more, the same law shall hold about the
bystanders assisting, and he who is found guilty in such a suit, if he
be a stranger but not resident, shall be imprisoned during a period of
two years; and a metic who disobeys the laws shall be imprisoned for
three years, unless the court assign him a longer term. And let him who
was present in any of these cases and did not assist according to law be
punished, if he be of the highest dass, by paying a fine of a mina; or
if he be of the second class, of fifty drachmas; or if of the third
class, by a fine of thirty drachmas; or if he be of the fourth class, by
a fine of twenty drachmas; and the generals and taxiarchs and phylarchs
and hipparchs shall form the court in such cases.
Laws are partly framed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct
them how they thay live on friendly terms with one another, and partly
for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot
be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil. These are
the persons who cause the word to be spoken which I am about to utter;
for them the legislator legislates of necessity, and in the hope that
there may be no need of his laws. He who shall dare to lay violent hands
upon his father or mother, or any still older relative, having no fear
either of the wrath of the Gods above, or of the punishments that are
spoken of in the world below, but transgresses in contempt of ancient
and universal traditions as though he were too wise to believe in them,
requires some extreme measure of prevention. Now death is not the worst
that can happen to men; far worse are the punishments which are said to
pursue them in the world below. But although they are most true tales,
they work on such souls no prevention; for if they had any effect there
would be no slayers of mothers, or impious hands lifted up against
parents; and therefore the punishments of this world which are inflicted
during life ought not in such cases to fall short, if possible, of the
terrors of the world below. Let our enactment then be as follows: If a
man dare to strike his father or his mother, or their fathers or
mothers, he being at the time of sound mind, then let any one who is at
hand come to the rescue as has been already said, and the metic or
stranger who comes to the rescue shall be called to the first place in
the games; but if he do not come he shall suffer the punishment of
perpetual exile. He who is not a metic, if he comes to the rescue, shall
have praise, and if he do not come, blame. And if a slave come to the
rescue, let him be made free, but if he do not come the rescue, let him
receive 100 strokes of the whip, by order of the wardens of the agora,
if the occurrence take place in the agora; or if somewhere in the city
beyond the limits of the agora, any warden of the city is in residence
shall punish him; or if in the country, then the commanders of the
wardens of the country. If those who are near at the time be inhabitants
of the same place, whether they be youths, or men, or women, let them
come to the rescue and denounce him as the impious one; and he who does
not come to the rescue shall fall under the curse of Zeus, the God of
kindred and of ancestors, according to law. And if any one is found
guilty of assaulting a parent, let him in the first place be for ever
banished from the city into the country, and let him abstain from the
temples; and if he do not abstain, the wardens of the country shall
punish him with blows, or in any way which they please, and if he return
he shall be put to death. And if any freeman eat or drink, or have any
other sort of intercourse with him, or only meeting him have voluntarily
touched him, he shall not enter into any temple, nor into the agora, nor
into the city, until he is purified; for he should consider that he has
become tainted by a curse. And if he disobeys the law, and pollutes the
city and the temples contrary to law, and one of the magistrates sees
him and does not indict him, when he gives in his account this omission
shall be a most serious charge.
If a slave strike a freeman, whether a stranger or a citizen, let any
one who is present come to the rescue, or pay the penalty already
mentioned; and let the bystanders bind him, and deliver him up to the
injured person, and he receiving him shall put him in chains, and
inflict on him as many stripes as he pleases; but having punished him he
must surrender him to his master according to law, and not deprive him
of his property. Let the law be as follows: The slave who strikes a
freeman, not at the command of the magistrates, his owner shall receive
bound from the man whom he has stricken, and not release him until the
slave has persuaded the man whom he has stricken that he ought to be
released. And let there be the same laws about women in relation to
women, about men and women in relation to one another.
BOOK X
And now having spoken of assaults, let us sum up all acts of violence
under a single law, which shall be as follows: No one shall take or
carry away any of his neighbour’s goods, neither shall he use anything
which is his neighbour’s without the consent of the owner; for these are
the offences which are and have been, and will ever be, the source of
all the aforesaid evils. The greatest of them are excesses and
insolences of youth, and are offences against the greatest when they are
done against religion; and especially great when in violation of public
and holy rites, or of the partly-common rites in which tribes and
phratries share; and in the second degree great when they are committed
against private rites and sepulchres, and in the third degree (not to
repeat the acts formerly mentioned), when insults are offered to
parents; the fourth kind of violence is when any one, regardless of the
authority of the rulers, takes or carries away or makes use of anything
which belongs to them, not having their consent; and the fifth kind is
when the violation of the civil rights of an individual demands
reparation. There should be a common law embracing all these cases. For
we have already said in general terms what shall be the punishment of
sacrilege, whether fraudulent or violent, and now we have to determine
what is to be the punishment of those who speak or act insolently toward
the Gods. But first we must give them an admonition which may be in the
following terms: No one who in obedience to the laws believed that there
were Gods, ever intentionally did any unholy act, or uttered any
unlawful word; but he who did must have supposed one of three
thingseither that they did not exist, — which is the first possibility,
or secondly, that, if they did, they took no care of man, or thirdly,
that they were easily appeased and turned aside from their purpose, by
sacrifices and prayers. Cleinias What shall we say or do to these
persons? Athenian Stranger My good friend, let us first hear the jests
which I suspect that they in their superiority will utter against us.
Cle. What jests?
Ath. They will make some irreverent speech of this sort: “O inhabitants
of Athens, and Sparta, and Cnosus,” they will reply, “in that you speak
truly; for some of us deny the very existence of the Gods, while others,
as you say, are of opinion that they do not care about us; and others
that they are turned from their course by gifts. Now we have a right to
claim, as you yourself allowed, in the matter of laws, that before you
are hard upon us and threaten us, you should argue with us and convince
us — you should first attempt to teach and persuade us that there are
Gods by reasonable evidences, and also that they are too good to be
unrighteous, or to be propitiated, or turned from their course by gifts.
For when we hear such things said of them by those who are esteemed to
be the best of poets, and orators, and prophets, and priests, and by
innumerable others, the thoughts of most of us are not set upon
abstaining from unrighteous acts, but upon doing them and atoning for
them. When lawgivers profess that they are gentle and not stern, we
think that they should first of all use persuasion to us, and show us
the existence of Gods, if not in a better manner than other men, at any
rate in a truer; and who knows but that we shall hearken to you? If then
our request is a fair one, please to accept our challenge.”
Cle. But is there any difficulty in proving the existence of the Gods?
Ath. How would you prove it?
Cle. How? In the first place, the earth and the sun, and the stars and
the universe, and the fair order of the seasons, and the division of
them into years and months, furnish proofs of their existence; and also
there is the fact that all Hellenes and barbarians believe in them.
Ath. I fear, my sweet friend, though I will not say that I much regard,
the contempt with which the profane will be likely to assail us. For you
do not understand the nature of their complaint, and you fancy that they
rush into impiety only from a love of sensual pleasure.
Cle. Why, Stranger, what other reason is there?
Ath. One which you who live in a different atmosphere would never guess.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. A very grievous sort of ignorance which is imagined to be the
greatest wisdom.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. At Athens there are tales preserved in writing which the virtue of
your state, as I am informed, refuses to admit. They speak of the Gods
in prose as well as verse, and the oldest of them tell of the origin of
the heavens and of the world, and not far from the beginning of their
story they proceed to narrate the birth of the Gods, and how after they
were born they behaved to one another.
Whether these stories have in other ways a good or a bad influence, I
should not like to be severe upon them, because they are ancient; but,
looking at them with reference to the duties of children to their
parents, I cannot praise them, or think that they are useful, or at all
true. Of the words of the ancients I have nothing more to say; and I
should wish to say of them only what is pleasing to the Gods. But as to
our younger generation and their wisdom, I cannot let them off when they
do mischief. For do but mark the effect of their words: when you and I
argue for the existence of the Gods, and produce the sun, moon, stars,
and earth, claiming for them a divine being, if we would listen to the
aforesaid philosophers we should say that they are earth and stones
only, which can have no care at all of human affairs, and that all
religion is a cooking up of words and a make-believe.
Cle. One such teacher, O Stranger, would be bad enough, and you imply
that there are many of them, which is worse.
Ath. Well, then; what shall we say or do? — Shall we assume that some
one is accusing us among unholy men, who are trying to escape from the
effect of our legislation; and that they say of us — How dreadful that
you should legislate on the supposition that there are Gods! Shall we
make a defence of ourselves? or shall we leave them and return to our
laws, lest the prelude should become longer than the law? For the
discourse will certainly extend to great length, if we are to treat the
impiously disposed as they desire, partly demonstrating to them at some
length the things of which they demand an explanation, partly making
them afraid or dissatisfied, and then proceed to the requisite
enactments.
Cle. Yes, Stranger; but then how often have we repeated already that on
the present occasion there is no reason why brevity should be preferred
to length; who is “at our heels”? — as the saying goes, and it would be
paltry and ridiculous to prefer the shorter to the better. It is a
matter of no small consequence, in some way or other to prove that there
are Gods, and that they are good, and regard justice more than men do.
The demonstration of this would be the best and noblest prelude of all
our laws. And therefore, without impatience, and without hurry, let us
unreservedly consider the whole matter, summoning up all the power of
persuasion which we possess.
Ath. Seeing you thus in earnest, I would fain offer up a prayer that I
may succeed: but I must proceed at once. Who can be calm when he is
called upon to prove the existence of the Gods? Who can avoid hating and
abhorring the men who are and have been the cause of this argument; I
speak of those who will not believe the tales which they have heard as
babes and sucklings from their mothers and nurses, repeated by them both
in jest and earnest, like charms, who have also heard them in the
sacrificial prayers, and seen sights accompanying them — sights and
sounds delightful to children — and their parents during the sacrifices
showing an intense earnestness on behalf of their children and of
themselves, and with eager interest talking to the Gods, and beseeching
them, as though they were firmly convinced of their existence; who
likewise see and hear the prostrations and invocations which are made by
Hellenes and barbarians at the rising and setting of the sun and moon,
in all the vicissitudes of life, not as if they thought that there were
no Gods, but as if there could be no doubt of their existence, and no
suspicion of their non-existence; when men, knowing all these things,
despise them on no real grounds, as would be admitted by all who have
any particle of intelligence, and when they force us to say what we are
now saying, how can any one in gentle terms remonstrate with the like of
them, when he has to begin by proving to them the very existence of the
Gods? Yet the attempt must be made; for it would be unseemly that one
half of mankind should go mad in their lust of pleasure, and the other
half in their indignation at such persons.
Our address to these lost and perverted natures should not be spoken in
passion; let us suppose ourselves to select some one of them, and gently
reason with him, smothering our anger: O my son, we will say to him, you
are young, and the advance of time will make you reverse may of the
opinions which you now hold. Wait awhile, and do not attempt to judge at
present of the highest things; and that is the highest of which you now
think nothing — to know the Gods rightly and to live accordingly. And in
the first place let me indicate to you one point which is of great
importance, and about which I cannot be deceived: You and your friends
are not the first who have held this opinion about the Gods. There have
always been persons more or less numerous who have had the same
disorder. I have known many of them, and can tell you, that no one who
had taken up in youth this opinion, that the Gods do not exist, ever
continued in the same until he was old; the two other notions certainly
do continue in some cases, but not in many; the notion, I mean, that the
Gods exist, but take no heed of human things, and the other notion that
they do take heed of them, but are easily propitiated with sacrifices
and prayers. As to the opinion about the Gods which may some day become
clear to you, I advise you go wait and consider if it be true or not;
ask of others, and above all of the legislator. In the meantime take
care that you do not offend against the Gods. For the duty of the
legislator is and always will be to teach you the truth of these
matters.
Cle. Our address, Stranger, thus far, is excellent.
Ath. Quite true, Megillus and Cleinias, but I am afraid that we have
unconsciously lighted on a strange doctrine.
Cle. What doctrine do you mean?
Ath. The wisest of all doctrines, in the opinion of many.
Cle. I wish that you would speak plainer.
Ath. The doctrine that all things do become, have become, and will
become, some by nature, some by art, and some by chance.
Cle. Is not that true?
Ath. Well, philosophers are probably right; at any rate we may as well
follow in their track, and examine what is the meaning of them and their
disciples.
Cle. By all means.
Ath. They say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of
nature and of chance, the lesser of art, which, receiving from nature
the greater and primeval creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser
works which are generally termed artificial.
Cle. How is that?
Ath. I will explain my meaning still more clearly. They say that fire
and water, and earth and air, all exist by nature and chance, and none
of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in orderearth,
and sun, and moon, and stars — they have been created by means of these
absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by
chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among
them — of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and
according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have
been formed by necessity.
After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created,
and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and
all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as
they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and
chance only. Art sprang up afterwards and out of these, mortal and of
mortal birth, and produced in play certain images and very partial
imitations of the truth, having an affinity to one another, such as
music and painting create and their companion arts. And there are other
arts which have a serious purpose, and these co-operate with nature,
such, for example, as medicine, and husbandry, and gymnastic. And they
say that politics cooperate with nature, but in a less degree, and have
more of art; also that legislation is entirely a work of art, and is
based on assumptions which are not true.
Cle. How do you mean?
Ath. In the first place, my dear friend, these people would say that the
Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which
are different in different places, according to the agreement of those
who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and
another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no
existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about
them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art
and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment
and at the time at which they are made.These, my friends, are the
sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the
minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,
and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the
Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise
factions, these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according
to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others, and not in
legal subjection to them.
Cle. What a dreadful picture, Stranger, have you given, and how great is
the injury which is thus inflicted on young men to the ruin both of
states and families!
Ath. True, Cleinias; but then what should the lawgiver do when this evil
is of long standing? should he only rise up in the state and threaten
all mankind, proclaiming that if they will not say and think that the
Gods are such as the law ordains (and this may be extended generally to
the honourable, the just, and to all the highest things, and to all that
relates to virtue and vice), and if they will not make their actions
conform to the copy which the law gives them, then he who refuses to
obey the law shall die, or suffer stripes and bonds, or privation of
citizenship, or in some cases be punished by loss of property and exile?
Should he not rather, when he is making laws for men, at the same time
infuse the spirit of persuasion into his words, and mitigate the
severity of them as far as he can?
Cle. Why, Stranger, if such persuasion be at all possible, then a
legislator who has anything in him ought never to weary of persuading
men; he ought to leave nothing unsaid in support of the ancient opinion
that there are Gods, and of all those other truths which you were just
now mentioning; he ought to support the law and also art, and
acknowledge that both alike exist by nature, and no less than nature, if
they are the creations of mind in accordance with right reason, you
appear to me to maintain, and I am disposed to agree with you in
thinking.
Ath. Yes, my enthusiastic Cleinias; but are not these things when spoken
to a multitude hard to be understood, not to mention that they take up a
dismal length of time?
Cle. Why, Stranger, shall we, whose patience failed not when drinking or
music were the themes of discourse, weary now of discoursing about the
Gods, and about divine things? And the greatest help to rational
legislation is that the laws when once written down are always at rest;
they can be put to the test at any future time, and therefore, if on
first hearing they seem difficult, there is no reason for apprehension
about them, because any man however dull can go over them and consider
them again and again; nor if they are tedious but useful, is there any
reason or religion, as it seems to me, in any man refusing to maintain
the principles of them to the utmost of his power.
Megillus. Stranger, I like what Cleinias is saying.
Ath. Yes, Megillus, and we should do as he proposes; for if impious
discourses were not scattered, as I may say, throughout the world, there
would have been no need for any vindication of the existence of the Gods
— but seeing that they are spread far and wide, such arguments are
needed; and who should come to the rescue of the greatest laws, when
they are being undermined by bad men, but the legislator himself?
Meg. There is no more proper champion of them.
Ath. Well, then, tell me, Cleinias — for I must ask you to be my
partnerdoes not he who talks in this way conceive fire and water and
earth and air to be the first elements of all things? These he calls
nature, and out of these he supposes the soul to be formed afterwards;
and this is not a mere conjecture of ours about his meaning, but is what
he really means.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Then, by Heaven, we have discovered the source of this vain opinion
of all those physical investigators; and I would have you examine their
arguments with the utmost care, for their impiety is a very serious
matter; they not only make a bad and mistaken use of argument, but they
lead away the minds of others: that is my opinion of them.
Cle. You are right; but I should like to know how this happens.
Ath. I fear that the argument may seem singular.
Cle. Do not hesitate, Stranger; I see that you are afraid of such a
discussion carrying you beyond the limits of legislation. But if there
be no other way of showing our agreement in the belief that there are
Gods, of whom the law is said now to approve, let us take this way, my
good sir.
Ath. Then I suppose that I must repeat the singular argument of those
who manufacture the soul according to their own impious notions; they
affirm that which is the first cause of the generation and destruction
of all things, to be not first, but last, and that which is last to be
first, and hence they have fallen into error about the true nature of
the Gods.
Cle. Still I do not understand you.
Ath. Nearly all of them, my friends, seem to be ignorant of the nature
and power of the soul, especially in what relates to her origin: they do
not know that she is among the first of things, and before all bodies,
and is the chief author of their changes and transpositions.
And if this is true, and if the soul is older than the body, must not
the things which are of the soul’s kindred be of necessity prior to
those which appertain to the body?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then thought and attention and mind and art and law will be prior
to that which is hard and soft and heavy and light; and the great and
primitive works and actions will be works of art; they will be the
first, and after them will come nature and works of nature, which
however is a wrong term for men to apply to them; these will follow, and
will be under the government of art and mind.
Cle. But why is the word “nature” wrong?
Ath. Because those who use the term mean to say that nature is the first
creative power; but if the soul turn out to be the primeval element, and
not fire or air, then in the truest sense and beyond other things the
soul may be said to exist by nature; and this would be true if you
proved that the soul is older than the body, but not otherwise.
Cle. You are quite right.
Ath. Shall we, then, take this as the next point to which our attention
should be directed?
Cle. By all means.
Ath. Let us be on our guard lest this most deceptive argument with its
youthful looks, beguiling us old men, give us the slip and make a
laughing-stock of us. Who knows but we may be aiming at the greater, and
fail of attaining the lesser? Suppose that we three have to pass a rapid
river, and I, being the youngest of the three and experienced in rivers,
take upon me the duty of making the attempt first by myself; leaving you
in safety on the bank, I am to examine whether the river is passable by
older men like yourselves, and if such appears to be the case then I
shall invite you to follow, and my experience will help to convey you
across; but if the river is impassable by you, then there will have been
no danger to anybody but myself — would not that seem to be a very fair
proposal? I mean to say that the argument in prospect is likely to be
too much for you, out of your depth and beyond your strength, and I
should be afraid that the stream of my questions might create in you who
are not in the habit of answering, giddiness and confusion of mind, and
hence a feeling of unpleasantness and unsuitableness might arise. I
think therefore that I had better first ask the questions and then
answer them myself while you listen in safety; in that way I can carry
on the argument until I have completed the proof that the soul is prior
to the body.
Cle. Excellent, Stranger, and I hope that you will do as you propose.
Ath. Come, then, and if ever we are to call upon the Gods, let us call
upon them now in all seriousness to come to the demonstration of their
own existence. And so holding fast to the rope we will venture upon the
depths of the argument. When questions of this sort are asked of me, my
safest answer would appear to be as follows: Some one says to me, “O
Stranger, are all things at rest and nothing in motion, or is the exact
opposite of this true, or are some things in motion and others at rest?
— To this I shall reply that some things are in motion and others at
rest. ”And do not things which move a place, and are not the things
which are at rest at rest in a place?” Certainly. “And some move or rest
in one place and some in more places than one?” You mean to say, we
shall rejoin, that those things which rest at the centre move in one
place, just as the circumference goes round of globes which are said to
be at rest? “Yes.” And we observe that, in the revolution, the motion
which carries round the larger and the lesser circle at the same time is
proportionally distributed to greater and smaller, and is greater and
smaller in a certain proportion. Here is a wonder which might be thought
an impossibility, that the same motion should impart swiftness and
slowness in due proportion to larger and lesser circles.
“Very true.” And when you speak of bodies moving in many places, you
seem to me to mean those which move from one place to another, and
sometimes have one centre of motion and sometimes more than one because
they turn upon their axis; and whenever they meet anything, if it be
stationary, they are divided by it; but if they get in the midst between
bodies which are approaching and moving towards the same spot from
opposite directions, they unite with them. “I admit the truth of what
you are saying.” Also when they unite they grow, and when they are
divided they waste away — that is, supposing the constitution of each to
remain, or if that fails, then there is a second reason of their
dissolution. “And when are all things created and how?” Clearly, they
are created when the first principle receives increase and attains to
the second dimension, and from this arrives at the one which is
neighbour to this, and after reaching the third becomes perceptible to
sense.
Everything which is thus changing and moving is in process of
generation; only when at rest has it real existence, but when passing
into another state it is destroyed utterly. Have we not mentioned all
motions that there are, and comprehended them under their kinds and
numbered them with the exception, my friends, of two?
Cle. Which are they?
Ath. Just the two, with which our present enquiry is concerned.
Cle. Speak plainer.
Ath. I suppose that our enquiry has reference to the soul?
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Let us assume that there is a motion able to move other things, but
not to move itself; — that is one kind; and there is another kind which
can move itself as well as other things, working in composition and
decomposition, by increase and diminution and generation and destruction
— that is also one of the many kinds of motion.
Cle. Granted.
Ath. And we will assume that which moves other, and is changed by other,
to be the ninth, and that which changes itself and others, and is
co-incident with every action and every passion, and is the true
principle of change and motion in all that is — that we shall be
inclined to call the tenth.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And which of these ten motions ought we to prefer as being the
mightiest and most efficient?
Cle. I must say that the motion which is able to move itself is ten
thousand times superior to all the others.
Ath. Very good; but may I make one or two corrections in what I have
been saying?
Cle. What are they?
Ath. When I spoke of the tenth sort of motion, that was not quite
correct.
Cle. What was the error?
Ath. According to the true order, the tenth was really the first in
generation and power; then follows the second, which was strangely
enough termed the ninth by us.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. I mean this: when one thing changes another, and that another, of
such will there be any primary changing element? How can a thing which
is moved by another ever be the beginning of change? Impossible. But
when the self-moved changes other, and that again other, and thus
thousands upon tens of thousands of bodies are set in motion, must not
the beginning of all this motion be the change of the self-moving
principle?
Cle. Very true, and I quite agree.
Ath. Or, to put the question in another way, making answer to ourselves:
If, as most of these philosophers have the audacity to affirm, all
things were at rest in one mass, which of the above-mentioned principles
of motion would first spring up among them?
Cle. Clearly the self-moving; for there could be no change in them
arising out of any external cause; the change must first take place in
themselves.
Ath. Then we must say that self-motion being the origin of all motions,
and the first which arises among things at rest as well as among things
in motion, is the eldest and mightiest principle of change, and that
which is changed by another and yet moves other is second.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. At this stage of the argument let us put a question.
Cle. What question?
Ath. If we were to see this power existing in any earthy, watery, or
fiery substance, simple or compound — how should we describe it?
Cle. You mean to ask whether we should call such a self-moving power
life?
Ath. I do.
Cle. Certainly we should.
Ath. And when we see soul in anything, must we not do the same — must we
not admit that this is life?
Cle. We must.
Ath. And now, I beseech you, reflect; — you would admit that we have a
threefold knowledge of things?
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. I mean that we know the essence, and that we know the definition of
the essence, and the name, — these are the three; and there are two
questions which may be raised about anything.
Cle. How two?
Ath. Sometimes a person may give the name and ask the definition; or he
may give the definition and ask the name. I may illustrate what I mean
in this way.
Cle. How?
Ath. Number like some other things is capable of being divided into
equal parts; when thus divided, number is named “even,” and the
definition of the name “even” is “number divisible into two equal
parts”?
Cle. True.
Ath. I mean, that when we are asked about the definition and give the
name, or when we are asked about the name and give the definition — in
either case, whether we give name or definition, we speak of the same
thing, calling “even” the number which is divided into two equal parts.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. And what is the definition of that which is named “soul”? Can we
conceive of any other than that which has been already given — the
motion which can move itself?
Cle. You mean to say that the essence which is defined as the selfmoved
is the same with that which has the name soul?
Ath. Yes; and if this is true, do we still maintain that there is
anything wanting in the proof that the soul is the first origin and
moving power of all that is, or has become, or will be, and their
contraries, when she has been clearly shown to be the source of change
and motion in all things?
Cle. Certainly not; the soul as being the source of motion, has been
most satisfactorily shown to be the oldest of all things.
Ath. And is not that motion which is produced in another, by reason of
another, but never has any self-moving power at all, being in truth the
change of an inanimate body, to be reckoned second, or by any lower
number which you may prefer?
Cle. Exactly.
Ath. Then we are right, and speak the most perfect and absolute truth,
when we say that the soul is prior to the body, and that the body is
second and comes afterwards, and is born to obey the soul, which is the
ruler?
Cle. Nothing can be more true.
Ath. Do you remember our old admission, that if the soul was prior to
the body the things of the soul were also prior to those of the body?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then characters and manners, and wishes and reasonings, and true
opinions, and reflections, and recollections are prior to length and
breadth and depth and strength of bodies, if the soul is prior to the
body.
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. In the next place, must we not of necessity admit that the soul is
the cause of good and evil, base and honourable, just and unjust, and of
all other opposites, if we suppose her to be the cause of all things?
Cle. We must.
Ath. And as the soul orders and inhabits all things that move, however
moving, must we not say that she orders also the heavens?
Cle. Of course.
Ath. One soul or more? More than one — I will answer for you; at any
rate, we must not suppose that there are less than two — one the author
of good, and the other of evil.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Yes, very true; the soul then directs all things in heaven, and
earth, and sea by her movements, and these are described by the
termswill, consideration, attention, deliberation, opinion true and
false, joy and sorrow, confidence, fear, hatred, love, and other primary
motions akin to these; which again receive the secondary motions of
corporeal substances, and guide all things to growth and decay, to
composition and decomposition, and to the qualities which accompany
them, such as heat and cold, heaviness and lightness, hardness and
softness, blackness and whiteness, bitterness and sweetness, and all
those other qualities which the soul uses, herself a goddess, when truly
receiving the divine mind she disciplines all things rightly to their
happiness; but when she is the companion of folly, she does the very
contrary of all this. Shall we assume so much, or do we still entertain
doubts?
Cle. There is no room at all for doubt.
Ath. Shall we say then that it is the soul which controls heaven and
earth, and the whole world? — that it is a principle of wisdom and
virtue, or a principle which has neither wisdom nor virtue? Suppose that
we make answer as follows:
Cle. How would you answer?
Ath. If, my friend, we say that the whole p
Ath. and movement of heaven, and of all that is therein, is by nature
akin to the movement and revolution and calculation of mind, and
proceeds by kindred laws, then, as is plain, we must say that the best
soul takes care of the world and guides it along the good path.
Cle. True.
Ath. But if the world moves wildly and irregularly, then the evil soul
guides it.
Cle. True again.
Ath. Of what nature is the movement of mind? — To this question it is
not easy to give an intelligent answer; and therefore I ought to assist
you in framing one.
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Then let us not answer as if we would look straight at the sun,
making ourselves darkness at midday — I mean as if we were under the
impression that we could see with mortal eyes, or know adequately the
nature of mind; — it will be safer to look at the image only.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. Let us select of the ten motions the one which mind chiefly
resembles; this I will bring to your recollection, and will then make
the answer on behalf of us all.
Cle. That will be excellent.
Ath. You will surely remember our saying that all things were either at
rest or in motion?
Cle. I do.
Ath. And that of things in motion some were moving in one place, and
others in more than one?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. Of these two kinds of motion, that which moves in one place must
move about a centre like globes made in a lathe, and is most entirely
akin and similar to the circular movement of mind.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. In saying that both mind and the motion which is in one place move
in the same and like manner, in and about the same, and in relation to
the same, and according to one proportion and order, and are like the
motion of a globe, we invented a fair image, which does no discredit to
our ingenuity.
Cle. It does us great credit.
Ath. And the motion of the other sort which is not after the same
manner, nor in the same, nor about the same, nor in relation to the
same, nor in one place, nor in order, nor according to any rule or
proportion, may be said to be akin to senselessness and folly?
Cle. That is most true.
Ath. Then, after what has been said, there is no difficulty in
distinctly stating, that since soul carries all things round, either the
best soul or the contrary must of necessity carry round and order and
arrange the revolution of the heaven.
Cle. And judging from what has been said, Stranger, there would be
impiety in asserting that any but the most perfect soul or souls carries
round the heavens.
Ath. You have understood my meaning right well, Cleinias, and now let me
ask you another question.
Cle. What are you going to ask?
Ath. If the soul carries round the sun and moon, and the other stars,
does she not carry round each individual of them?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Then of one of them let us speak, and the same argument will apply
to all.
Cle. Which will you take?
Ath. Every one sees the body of the sun, but no one sees his soul, nor
the soul of any other body living or dead; and yet there is great reason
to believe that this nature, unperceived by any of our senses, is
circumfused around them all, but is perceived by mind; and therefore by
mind and reflection only let us apprehend the following point.
Cle. What is that?
Ath. If the soul carries round the sun, we shall not be far wrong in
supposing one of three alternatives.
Cle. What are they?
Ath. Either the soul which moves the sun this way and that, resides
within the circular and visible body, like the soul which carries us
about every way; or the soul provides herself with an external body of
fire or air, as some affirm, and violently propels body by body; or
thirdly, she is without such abody, but guides the sun by some
extraordinary and wonderful power.
Cle. Yes, certainly; the soul can only order all things in one of these
three ways.
Ath. And this soul of the sun, which is therefore better than the sun,
whether taking the sun about in a chariot to give light to men, or
acting from without or in whatever way, ought by every man to be deemed
a God.
Cle. Yes, by every man who has the least parti
Cle. of sense.
Ath. And of the stars too, and of the moon, and of the years and months
and seasons, must we not say in like manner, that since a soul or souls
having every sort of excellence are the causes of all of them, those
souls are Gods, whether they are living beings and reside in bodies, and
in this way order the whole heaven, or whatever be the place and mode of
their existence; — and will any one who admits all this venture to deny
that all things full of Gods?
Cle. No one, Stranger, would be such a madman.
Ath. And now, Megillus and Cleinias, let us offer terms to him who has
hitherto denied the existence of the Gods, and leave him.
Cle. What terms?
Ath. Either he shall teach us that we were wrong in saying that the soul
is the original of all things, and arguing accordingly; or, if he be not
able to say anything better, then he must yield to us and live for the
remainder of his life in the belief that there are Gods. — Let us see,
then, whether we have said enough or not enough to those who deny that
there are Gods.
Cle. Certainly — quite enough, Stranger.
Ath. Then to them we will say no more. And now we are to address him
who, believing that there are Gods, believes also that they take no heed
of human affairs: To him we say — O thou best of men, in believing that
there are Gods you are led by some affinity to them, which attracts you
towards your kindred and makes you honour and believe in them. But the
fortunes of evil and unrighteous men in private as well as public life,
which, though not really happy, are wrongly counted happy in the
judgment of men, and are celebrated both by poets and prose writers —
these draw you aside from your natural piety. Perhaps you have seen
impious men growing old and leaving their children’s children in high
offices, and their prosperity shakes your faith — you have known or
heard or been yourself an eyewitness of many monstrous impieties, and
have beheld men by such criminal means from small beginnings attaining
to sovereignty and the pinnacle of greatness; and considering all these
things you do not like to accuse the Gods of them, because they are your
relatives; and so from some want of reasoning power, and also from an
unwillingness to find fault with them, you have come to believe that
they exist indeed, but have no thought or care of human things. Now,
that your present evil opinion may not grow to still greater impiety,
and that we may if possible use arguments which may conjure away the
evil before it arrives, we will add another argument to that originally
addressed to him who utterly denied the existence of the Gods. And do
you, Megillus and Cleinias, answer for the young man as you did before;
and if any impediment comes in our way, I will take the word out of your
mouths, and carry you over the river as I did just now.
Cle. Very good; do as you say, and we will help you as well as we can.
Ath. There will probably be no difficulty in proving to him that the
Gods care about the small as well as about the great. For he was present
and heard what was said, that they are perfectly good, and that the care
of all things is most entirely natural to them.
Cle. No doubt he heard that.
Ath. Let us consider together in the next place what we mean by this
virtue which we ascribe to them. Surely we should say that to be
temperate and to possess mind belongs to virtue, and the contrary to
vice?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Yes; and courage is a part of virtue, and cowardice of vice?
Cle. True.
Ath. And the one is honourable, and the other dishonourable?
Cle. To be sure.
Ath. And the one, like other meaner things, is a human quality, but the
Gods have no part in anything of the sort?
Cle. That again is what everybody will admit.
Ath. But do we imagine carelessness and idleness and luxury to be
virtues? What do you think?
Cle. Decidedly not.
Ath. They rank under the opposite class?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And their opposites, therefore, would fall under the opposite
class?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. But are we to suppose that one who possesses all these good
qualities will be luxurious and heedless and idle, like those whom the
poet compares to stingless drones?
Cle. And the comparison is a most just one.
Ath. Surely God must not be supposed to have a nature which he himself
hates? — he who dares to say this sort of thing must not be tolerated
for a moment.
Cle. Of course not. How could he have?
Ath. Should we not on any principle be entirely mistaken in praising any
one who has some special business entrusted to him, if he have a mind
which takes care of great matters and no care of small ones? Reflect; he
who acts in this way, whether he be God or man, must act from one of two
principles.
Cle. What are they?
Ath. Either he must think that the neglect of the small matters is of no
consequence to the whole, or if he knows that they are of consequence,
and he neglects them, his neglect must be attributed to carelessness and
indolence. Is there any other way in which his neglect can be explained?
For surely, when it is impossible for him to take care of all, he is not
negligent if he fails to attend to these things great or small, which a
God or some inferior being might be wanting in strength or capacity to
manage?
Cle. Certainly not.
Ath. Now, then, let us examine the offenders, who both alike confess
that there are Gods, but with a difference — the one saying that they
may be appeased, and the other that they have no care of small matters:
there are three of us and two of them, and we will say to them — In the
first place, you both acknowledge that the Gods hear and see and know
all things, and that nothing can escape them which is matter of sense
and knowledge: do you admit this?
Cle. Yes.
Ath. And do you admit also that they have all power which mortals and
immortals can have?
Cle. They will, of course, admit this also.
Ath. And surely we three and they two — five in all — have acknowledged
that they are good and perfect?
Cle. Assuredly.
Ath. But, if they are such as we conceive them to be, can we possibly
suppose that they ever act in the spirit of carelessness and indolence?
For in us inactivity is the child of cowardice, and carelessness of
inactivity and indolence.
Cle. Most true.
Ath. Then not from inactivity and carelessness is any God ever
negligent; for there is no cowardice in them.
Cle. That is very true.
Ath. Then the alternative which remains is, that if the Gods neglect the
lighter and lesser concerns of the universe, they neglect them because
they know that they ought not to care about such matterswhat other
alternative is there but the opposite of their knowing?
Cle. There is none.
Ath. And, O most excellent and best of men, do I understand you to mean
that they are careless because they are ignorant, and do not know that
they ought to take care, or that they know, and yet like the meanest
sort of men, knowing the better, choose the worse because they are
overcome by pleasures and pains?
Cle. Impossible.
Ath. Do not all human things partake of the nature of soul? And is not
man the most religious of all animals?
Cle. That is not to be denied.
Ath. And we acknowledge that all mortal creatures are the property of
the Gods, to whom also the whole of heaven belongs?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And, therefore, whether a person says that these things are to the
Gods great or small — in either case it would not be natural for the
Gods who own us, and who are the most careful and the best of owners to
neglect us. — There is also a further consideration.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. Sensation and power are in an inverse ratio to each other in
respect to their case and difficulty.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. I mean that there is greater difficulty in seeing and hearing the
small than the great, but more facility in moving and controlling and
taking care of and unimportant things than of their opposites.
Cle. Far more.
Ath. Suppose the case of a physician who is willing and able to cure
some living thing as a whole — how will the whole fare at his hands if
he takes care only of the greater and neglects the parts which are
lesser?
Cle. Decidedly not well.
Ath. No better would be the result with pilots or generals, or
householders or statesmen, or any other such class, if they neglected
the small and regarded only the great; — as the builders say, the larger
stones do not lie well without the lesser.
Cle. Of course not.
Ath. Let us not, then, deem God inferior to human workmen, who, in
proportion to their skill, finish and perfect their works, small as well
as great, by one and the same art; or that God, the wisest of beings,
who is both willing and able to take care, is like a lazy
good-for-nothing, or a coward, who turns his back upon labour and gives
no thought to smaller and easier matters, but to the greater only.
Cle. Never, Stranger, let us admit a supposition about the Gods which is
both impious and false.
Ath. I think that we have now argued enough with him who delights to
accuse the Gods of neglect.
Cle. Yes.
Ath. He has been forced to acknowledge that he is in error, but he still
seems to me to need some words of consolation.
Cle. What consolation will you offer him?
Ath. Let us say to the youth: The ruler of the universe has ordered all
things with a view to the excellence and preservation of the whole, and
each part, as far as may be, has an action and passion appropriate to
it. Over these, down to the least fraction of them, ministers have been
appointed to preside, who have wrought out their perfection with
infinitesimal exactness. And one of these portions of the universe is
thine own, unhappy man, which, however little, contributes to the whole;
and you do not seem to be aware that this and every other creation is
for the sake of the whole, and in order that the life of the whole may
be blessed; and that you are created for the sake of the whole, and not
the whole for the sake of you. For every physician and every skilled
artist does all things for the sake of the whole, directing his effort
towards the common good, executing the part for the sake of the whole,
and not the whole for the sake of the part. And you are annoyed because
you are ignorant how what is best for you happens to you and to the
universe, as far as the laws of the common creation admit. Now, as the
soul combining first with one body and then with another undergoes all
sorts of changes, either of herself, or through the influence of another
soul, all that remains to the player of the game is that he should shift
the pieces; sending the better nature to the better place, and the worse
to the worse, and so assigning to them their proper portion.
Cle. In what way do you mean?
Ath. In a way which may be supposed to make the care of all things easy
to the Gods. If any one were to form or fashion all things without any
regard to the whole — if, for example, he formed a living element of
water out of fire, instead of forming many things out of one or one out
of many in regular order attaining to a first or second or third birth,
the transmutation would have been infinite; but now the ruler of the
world has a wonderfully easy task.
Cle. How so?
Ath. I will explain: When the king saw that our actions had life, and
that there was much virtue in them and much vice, and that the soul and
body, although not, like the Gods of popular opinion, eternal, yet
having once come into existence, were indestructible (for if either of
them had been destroyed, there would have been no generation of living
beings); and when he observed that the good of the soul was ever by
nature designed to profit men, and the evil to harm them — he, seeing
all this, contrived so to place each of the parts that their position
might in the easiest and best manner procure the victory of good and the
defeat of evil in the whole. And he contrived a general plan by which a
thing of a certain nature found a certain seat and room. But the
formation of qualities he left to the wills of individuals. For every
one of us is made pretty much what he is by the bent of his desires and
the nature of his soul.
Cle. Yes, that is probably true.
Ath. Then all things which have a soul change, and possess in themselves
a principle of change, and in changing move according to law and to the
order of destiny: natures which have undergone a lesser change move less
and on the earth’s surface, but those which have suffered more change
and have become more criminal sink into the abyss, that is to say, into
Hades and other places in the world below, of which the very names
terrify men, and which they picture to themselves as in a dream, both
while alive and when released from the body. And whenever the soul
receives more of good or evil from her own energy and the strong
influence of others — when she has communion with divine virtue and
becomes divine, she is carried into another and better place, which is
perfect in holiness; but when she has communion with evil, then she also
changes the Place of her life. This is the justice of the Gods who
inhabit Olympus. — O youth or young man, who fancy that you are
neglected by the Gods, know that if you become worse you shall go to the
worse souls, or if better to the better, and in every succession of life
and death you will do and suffer what like may fitly suffer at the hands
of like. This is the justice of heaven, which neither you nor any other
unfortunate will ever glory in escaping, and which the ordaining powers
have specially ordained; take good heed thereof, for it will be sure to
take heed of you. If you say: I am small and will creep into the depths
of the earth, or I am high and will fly up to heaven, you are not so
small or so high but that you shall pay the fitting penalty, either here
or in the world below or in some still more savage place whither you
shall be conveyed.
This is also the explanation of the fate of those whom you saw, who had
done unholy and evil deeds, and from small beginnings had grown great,
and you fancied that from being miserable they had become happy; and in
their actions, as in a mirror, you seemed to see the universal neglect
of the Gods, not knowing how they make all things work together and
contribute to the great whole.
And thinkest thou, bold man, that thou needest not to know this?he who
knows it not can never form any true idea of the happiness or
unhappiness of life or hold any rational discourse respecting either. If
Cleinias and this our reverend company succeed in bringing to you that
you know not what you say of the Gods, then will God help you; but
should you desire to hear more, listen to what we say to the third
opponent, if you have any understanding whatsoever. For I think that we
have sufficiently proved the existence of the Gods, and that they care
for men: The other notion that they are appeased by the wicked, and take
gifts, is what we must not concede to any one, and what every man should
disprove to the utmost of his power.
Cle. Very good; let us do as you say.
Ath. Well, then, by the Gods themselves I conjure you to tell me — if
they are to be propitiated, how are they to be propitiated? Who are
they, and what is their nature? Must they not be at least rulers who
have to order unceasingly the whole heaven?
Cle. True.
Ath. And to what earthly rulers can they be compared, or who to them?
How in the less can we find an image of the greater? Are they
charioteers of contending pairs of steeds, or pilots of vessels? Perhaps
they might be compared to the generals of armies, or they might be
likened to physicians providing against the diseases which make war upon
the body, or to husbandmen observing anxiously the effects of the
seasons on the growth of plants; or I perhaps, to shepherds of flocks.
For as we acknowledge the world to be full of many goods and also of
evils, and of more evils than goods, there is, as we affirm, an immortal
conflict going on among us, which requires marvellous watchfulness; and
in that conflict the Gods and demigods are our allies, and we are their
property. Injustice and insolence and folly are the destruction of us,
and justice and temperance and wisdom are our salvation; and the place
of these latter is in the life of the Gods, although some vestige of
them may occasionally be discerned among mankind. But upon this earth we
know that there dwell souls possessing an unjust spirit, who may be
compared to brute animals, which fawn upon their keepers, whether dogs
or shepherds, or the best and most perfect masters; for they in like
manner, as the voices of the wicked declare, prevail by flattery and
prayers and incantations, and are allowed to make their gains with
impunity. And this sin, which is termed dishonesty, is an evil of the
same kind as what is termed disease in living bodies or pestilence in
years or seasons of the year, and in cities and governments has another
name, which is injustice.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. What else can he say who declares that the Gods are always lenient
to the doers of unjust acts, if they divide the spoil with them? As if
wolves were to toss a portion of their prey to the dogs, and they,
mollified by the gift, suffered them to tear the flocks. Must not he who
maintains that the Gods can be propitiated argue thus?
Cle. Precisely so.
Ath. And to which of the above-mentioned classes of guardians would any
man compare the Gods without absurdity? Will he say that they are like
pilots, who are themselves turned away from their duty by “libations of
wine and the savour of fat,” and at last overturn both ship and sailors?
Cle. Assuredly not.
Ath. And surely they are not like charioteers who are bribed to give up
the victory to other chariots?
Cle. That would be a fearful image of the Gods.
Ath. Nor are they like generals, or physicians, or husbandmen, or
shepherds; and no one would compare them to dogs who have silenced by
wolves.
Cle. A thing not to be spoken of.
Ath. And are not all the Gods the chiefest of all guardians, and do they
not guard our highest interests?
Cle. Yes; the chiefest.
Ath. And shall we say that those who guard our noblest interests, and
are the best of guardians, are inferior in virtue to dogs, and to men
even of moderate excellence, who would never betray justice for the sake
of gifts which unjust men impiously offer them?
Cle. Certainly not: nor is such a notion to be endured, and he who holds
this opinion may be fairly singled out and characterized as of all
impious men the wickedest and most impious.
Ath. Then are the three assertions — that the Gods exist, and that they
take care of men, and that they can never be persuaded to do injustice,
now sufficiently demonstrated? May we say that they are?
Cle. You have our entire assent to your words.
Ath. I have spoken with vehemence because I am zealous against evil men;
and I will tell dear Cleinias, why I am so. I would not have the wicked
think that, having the superiority in argument, they may do as they
please and act according to their various imaginations about the Gods;
and this zeal has led me to speak too vehemently; but if we have at all
succeeded in persuading the men to hate themselves and love their
opposites, the prelude of our laws about impiety will not have been
spoken in vain.
Cle. So let us hope; and even if we have failed, the style of our
argument will not discredit the lawgiver.
Ath. After the prelude shall follow a discourse, which will be the
interpreter of the law; this shall proclaim to all impious persons: that
they must depart from their ways and go over to the pious.
And to those who disobey, let the law about impiety be as follows: If a
man is guilty of any impiety in word or deed, any one who happens to
present shall give information to the magistrates, in aid of the law;
and let the magistrates who. first receive the information bring him
before the appointed court according to the law; and if a magistrate,
after receiving information, refuses to act, he shall be tried for
impiety at the instance of any one who is willing to vindicate the laws;
and if any one be cast, the court shall estimate the punishment of each
act of impiety; and let all such criminals be imprisoned.
There shall be three prisons in the state: the first of them is to be
the common prison in the neighbourhood of the agora for the safekeeping
of the generality of offenders; another is to be in the neighbourhood of
the nocturnal council, and is to be called the “House of Reformation”;
another, to be situated in some wild and desolate region in the centre
of the country, shall be called by some name expressive of retribution.
Now, men fall into impiety from three causes, which have been already
mentioned, and from each of these causes arise two sorts of impiety, in
all six, which are worth distinguishing, and should not all have the
same punishment. For he who does not believe in Gods, and yet has a
righteous nature, hates the wicked and dislikes and refuses to do
injustice, and avoids unrighteous men, and loves the righteous. But they
who besides believing that the world is devoid of Gods are intemperate,
and have at the same time good memories and quick wits, are worse;
although both of them are unbelievers, much less injury is done by the
one than by the other. The one may talk loosely about the Gods and about
sacrifices and oaths, and perhaps by laughing at other men he may make
them like himself, if he be not punished. But the other who holds the
same opinions and is called a clever man, is full of stratagem and
deceit — men of this class deal in prophecy and jugglery of all kinds,
and out of their ranks sometimes come tyrants and demagogues and
generals and hierophants of private mysteries and the Sophists, as they
are termed, with their ingenious devices. There are many kinds of
unbelievers, but two only for whom legislation is required; one the
hypocritical sort, whose crime is deserving of death many times over,
while the other needs only bonds and admonition. In like manner also the
notion that the Gods take no thought of men produces two other sorts of
crimes, and the notion that they may be propitiated produces two more.
Assuming these divisions, let those who have been made what they are
only from want of understanding, and not from malice or an evil nature,
be placed by the judge in the House of Reformation, and ordered to
suffer imprisonment during a period of not less than five years. And in
the meantime let them have no intercourse with the other citizens,
except with members of the nocturnal council, and with them let them
converse with a view to the improvement of their soul’s health. And when
the time of their imprisonment has expired, if any of them be of sound
mind let him be restored to sane company, but if not, and if he be
condemned a second time, let him be punished with death. As to that
class of monstrous natures who not only believe that there are no Gods,
or that they are negligent, or to be propitiated, but in contempt of
mankind conjure the souls of the living and say that they can conjure
the dead and promise to charm the Gods with sacrifices and prayers, and
will utterly overthrow individuals and whole houses and states for the
sake of money — let him who is guilty of any of these things be
condemned by the court to be bound according to law in the prison which
is in the centre of the land, and let no freeman ever approach him, but
let him receive the rations of food appointed by the guardians of the
law from the hands of the public slaves; and when he is dead let him be
cast beyond the borders unburied, and if any freeman assist in burying
him, let him pay the penalty of impiety to any one who is willing to
bring a suit against him. But if he leaves behind him children who are
fit to be citizens, let the guardians of orphans take care of them, just
as they would of any other orphans, from the day on which their father
is convicted.
In all these cases there should be one law, which will make men in
general less liable to transgress in word or deed, and less foolish,
because they will not be allowed to practise religious rites contrary to
law. And let this be the simple form of the law: No man shall have
sacred rites in a private house. When he would sacrifice, let him go to
the temples and hand over his offerings to the priests and priestesses,
who see to the sanctity of such things, and let him pray himself, and
let any one who pleases join with him in prayer. The reason of this is
as follows: Gods and temples are not easily instituted, and to establish
them rightly is the work of a mighty intellect. And women especially,
and men too, when they are sick or in danger, or in any sort of
difficulty, or again on their receiving any good fortune, have a way of
consecrating the occasion, vowing sacrifices, and promising shrines to
Gods, demigods, and sons of Gods; and when they are awakened by terrible
apparitions and dreams or remember visions, they find in altars and
temples the remedies of them, and will fill every house and village with
them, placing them in the open air, or wherever they may have had such
visions; and with a view to all these cases we should obey the law. The
law has also regard to the impious, and would not have them fancy that
by the secret performance of these actions — by raising temples and by
building altars in private houses, they can propitiate the God secretly
with sacrifices and prayers, while they are really multiplying their
crimes infinitely, bringing guilt from heaven upon themselves, and also
upon those who permit them, and who are better men than they are; and
the consequence is that the whole state reaps the fruit of their
impiety, which, in a certain sense, is deserved. Assuredly God will not
blame the legislator, who will enact the following law: No one shall
possess shrines of the Gods in private houses, and he who is found to
possess them, and perform any sacred rites not publicly authorized —
supposing the offender to be some man or woman who is not guilty of any
other great and impious crimeshall be informed against by him who is
acquainted with the fact, which shall be announced by him to the
guardians of the law; and let them issue orders that he or she shall
carry away their private rites to the public temples, and if they do not
persuade them, let them inflict a penalty on them until they comply. And
if a person be proven guilty of impiety, not merely from childish
levity, but such as grown-up men may be guilty of, whether he have
sacrificed publicly or privately to any Gods, let him be punished with
death, for his sacrifice is impure. Whether the deed has been done in
earnest, or only from childish levity, let the guardians of the law
determine, before they bring the matter into court and prosecute the
offender for impiety.
BOOK XI
In the next place, dealings between man and man require to be suitably
regulated. The principle of them is very simple: Thou shalt not, if thou
canst help, touch that which is mine, or remove the least thing which
belongs to me without my consent; and may I be of a sound mind, and do
to others as I would that they should do to me. First, let us speak of
treasure trove: May I never pray the Gods to find the hidden treasure,
which another has laid up for himself and his family, he not being one
of my ancestors, nor lift, if I should find, such a treasure. And may I
never have any dealings with those who are called diviners, and who in
any way or manner counsel me to take up the deposit entrusted to the
earth, for I should not gain so much in the increase of my possessions,
if I take up the prize, as I should grow in justice and virtue of soul,
if I abstain; and this will be a better possession to me than the other
in a better part of myself; for the possession of justice in the soul is
preferable to the possession of wealth. And of many things it is well
said — “Move not the immovables,” and this may be regarded as one of
them. And we shall do well to believe the common tradition which says
that such deeds prevent a man from having a family. Now as to him who is
careless about having children and regardless of the legislator, taking
up that which neither he deposited, nor any ancestor of his, without the
consent of the depositor, violating the simplest and noblest of laws
which was the enactment of no mean man: “Take not up that which was not
laid down by thee” of him, I say, who despises these two legislators,
and takes up, not small matter which he has not deposited, but perhaps a
great heap of treasure, what he ought to suffer at the hands of the
Gods, God only knows; but I would have the first person who sees him go
and tell the wardens of the city, if the occurrence has taken place in
the city, or if the occurrence has taken place in the agora he shall
tell the wardens of the agora, or if in the country he shall tell the
wardens of the country and their commanders. When information has been
received the city shall send to Delphi, and, whatever the God answers
about the money and the remover of the money, that the city shall do in
obedience to the oracle; the informer, if he be a freeman, shall have
the honour of doing rightly, and he who informs not, the dishonour of
doing wrongly; and if he be a slave who gives information, let him be
freed, as he ought to be, by the state, which shall give his master the
price of him; but if he do not inform he shall be punished with death.
Next in order shall follow a similar law, which shall apply equally to
matters great and small: If a man happens to leave behind him some part
of his property, whether intentionally or unintentionally, let him who
may come upon the left property suffer it to remain, reflecting that
such things are under the protection of the Goddess of ways, and are
dedicated to her by the law. But if any one defies the law, and takes
the property home with him, let him, if the thing is of little worth,
and the man who takes it a slave, be beaten with many stripes by him,
being a person of not less than thirty years of age.
Or if he be a freeman, in addition to being thought a mean person and a
despiser of the laws, let him pay ten times the value of the treasure
which he has moved to the leaver. And if some one accuses another of
having anything which belongs to him, whether little or much, and the
other admits that he has this thing, but denies that the property in
dispute belongs to other, if the property be registered with the
magistrates according to law, the claimant shall summon the possessor,
who shall bring it before the magistrates; and when it is brought into
court, if it be registered in the public registers, to which of the
litigants it belonged, let him take it and go his way. Or if the
property be registered as belonging to some one who is not present,
whoever will offer sufficient surety on behalf of the absent person that
he will give it up to him, shall take it away as the representative of
the other. But if the property which is deposited be not registered with
the magistrates, let it remain until the time of trial with three of the
eldest of the magistrates; and if it be an animal which is deposited,
then he who loses the suit shall pay the magistrates for its keep, and
they shall determine the cause within three days.
Any one who is of sound mind may arrest his own slave, and do with him
whatever he will of such things as are lawful; and he may arrest the
runaway slave of any of his friends or kindred with a view to his
safe-keeping. And if any one takes away him who is being carried off as
a slave, intending to liberate him, he who is carrying him off shall let
him go; but he who takes him away shall give three sufficient sureties;
and if he give them, and not without giving them, he may take him away,
but if he take him away after any other manner he shall be deemed guilty
of violence, and being convicted shall pay as a penalty double the
amount of the damages claimed to him who has been deprived of the slave.
Any man may also carry off a freedman, if he do not pay respect or
sufficient respect to him who freed him. Now the respect shall be, that
the freedman go three times in the month to the hearth of the person who
freed him and offer to do whatever he ought, so far as he can; and he
shall agree to make such a marriage as his former master approves. He
shall not be permitted to have more property than he who gave him
liberty, and what more he has shall belong to his master. The freedman
shall not remain in the state more than twenty years, but like other
foreigners shall go away, taking his entire property with him, unless he
has the consent of the magistrates and of his former master to remain.
If a freedman or any other stranger has a property greater than the
census of the third class, at the expiration. of thirty days from the
day on which this comes to pass, he shall take that which is his and go
his way, and in this case he shall not be allowed to remain any longer
by the magistrates. And if any one disobeys this regulation, and is
brought into court and convicted, he shall be punished with death, his
property shall be confiscated. Suits about these matters shall take
place before the tribes, unless the plaintiff and defendant have got rid
of the accusation either before their neighbours or before judges chosen
by them. If a man lay claim to any animal or anything else which he
declares to be his, let the possessor refer to the seller or to some
honest and trustworthy person, who has given, or in some legitimate way
made over the property to him; if he be a citizen or a metic, sojourning
in the city, within thirty days, or, if the property have been delivered
to him by a stranger, within five months, of which the middle month
shall include the summer solstice.
When goods are exchanged by selling and buying, a man shall deliver
them, and receive the price of them, at a fixed place in the agora, and
have done with the matter; but he shall not buy or sell anywhere else,
nor give credit. And if in any other manner or in any other place there
be an exchange of one thing for another, and the seller give credit to
the man who buys fram him, he must do this on the understanding that the
law gives no protection in cases of things sold not in accordance with
these regulations. Again, as to contributions, any man who likes may go
about collecting contributions as a friend among friends, but if any
difference arises about the collection, he is to act on the
understanding that the law gives no protection in such cases. He who
sells anything above the value of fifty drachmas shall be required to
remain in the city for ten days, and the purchaser shall be informed of
the house of the seller, with a view to the sort of charges which are
apt to arise in such cases, and the restitutions which the law allows.
And let legal restitution be on this wise: If a man sells a slave who is
in a consumption, or who has the disease of the stone, or of strangury,
or epilepsy, or some other tedious and incurable disorder of body or
mind, which is not discernible to the ordinary man, if the purchaser be
a physician or trainer, he shall have no right of restitution; nor shall
there be any right of restitution if the seller has told the truth
beforehand to the buyer. But if a skilled person sells to another who is
not skilled, let the buyer appeal for restitution within six months,
except in the case of epilepsy, and then the appeal may be made within a
year.
The cause shall be determined by such physicians as the parties may
agree to choose; and the defendant, if he lose the suit, shall pay
double the price at which he sold. If a private person sell to another
private person, he shall have the right of restitution, and the decision
shall be given as before, but the defendant, if he be cast, shall only
pay back the price of the slave. If a person sells a homicide to
another, and they both know of the fact, let there be no restitution in
such a case, but if he do not know of the fact, there shall be a right
of restitution, whenever the buyer makes the discovery; and the decision
shall rest with the five youngest guardians of the law, and if the
decision be that the seller was cognisant the fact, he shall purify the
house of the purchaser, according to the law of the interpreters, and
shall pay back three times the purchase-money.
If man exchanges either money for money, or anything whatever for
anything else, either with or without life, let him give and receive
them genuine and unadulterated, in accordance with the law.
And let us have a prelude about all this sort of roguery, like the
preludes of our other laws. Every man should regard adulteration as of
one and the same class with falsehood and deceit, concerning which the
many are too fond of saying that at proper times and places the practice
may often be right. But they leave the occasion, and the when, and the
where, undefined and unsettled, and from this want of definiteness in
their language they do a great deal of harm to themselves and to others.
Now a legislator ought not to leave the matter undetermined; he ought to
prescribe some limit, either greater or less. Let this be the rule
prescribed: No one shall call the Gods to witness, when he says or does
anything false or deceitful or dishonest, unless he would be the most
hateful of mankind to them. And he is most hateful to them takes a false
oath, and pays no heed to the Gods; and in the next degree, he who tells
a falsehood in the presence of his superiors. Now better men are the
superiors of worse men, and in general elders are the superiors of the
young; wherefore also parents are the superiors of their off spring, and
men of women and children, and rulers of their subjects; for all men
ought to reverence any one who is in any position of authority, and
especially those who are in state offices. And this is the reason why I
have spoken of these matters.
For every one who is guilty of adulteration in the agora tells a
falsehood, and deceives, and when he invokes the Gods, according to the
customs and cautions of the wardens of the agora, he does but swear
without any respect for God or man. Certainly, it is an excellent rule
not lightly to defile the names of the Gods, after the fashion of men in
general, who care little about piety and purity in their religious
actions. But if a man will not conform to this rule, let the law be as
follows: He who sells anything in the agora shall not ask two prices for
that which he sells, but he shall ask one price, and if he do not obtain
this, he shall take away his goods; and on that day he shall not value
them either at more or less; and there shall be no praising of any
goods, or oath taken about them. If a person disobeys this command, any
citizen who is present, not being less than thirty years of age, may
with impunity chastise and beat the swearer, but if instead of obeying
the laws he takes no heed, he shall be liable to the charge of having
betrayed them. If a man sells any adulterated goods and will not obey
these regulations, he who knows and can prove the fact, and does prove
it in the presence of the magistrates, if he be a slave or a metic,
shall have the adulterated goods; but if he be a citizen, and do not
pursue the charge, he shall be called a rogue, and deemed to have robbed
the Gods of the agora; or if he proves the charge, he shall dedicate the
goods to the Gods of the agora.
He who is proved to have sold any adulterated goods, in addition to
losing the goods themselves, shall be beaten with stripes — a stripe for
a drachma, according to the price of the goods; and the herald shall
proclaim in the agora the offence for which he is going to be beaten.
The warden of the agora and the guardians of the law shall obtain
information from experienced persons about the rogueries and
adulterations of the sellers, and shall write up what the seller ought
and ought not to do in each case; and let them inscribe their laws on a
column in front of the court of the wardens of the agora, that they may
be clear instructors of those who have business in the agora. Enough has
been said in what has preceded about the wardens of the city, and if
anything seems to be wanting, let them communicate with the guardians of
the law, and write down the omission, and place on a column in the court
of the wardens of the city the primary and secondary regulations which
are laid down for them about their office.
After the practices of adulteration naturally follow the practices of
retail trade. Concerning these, we will first of all give a word of
counsel and reason, and the law shall come afterwards. Retail trade in a
city is not by nature intended to do any harm, but quite the contrary;
for is not he a benefactor who reduces the inequalities and
incommensurabilities of goods to equality and common measure? And this
is what the power of money accomplishes, and the merchant may be said to
be appointed for this purpose. The hireling and the tavern-keeper, and
many other occupations, some of them more and others less seemly-alike
have this object; — they seek to satisfy our needs and equalize our
possessions. Let us then endeavour to see what has brought retail trade
into ill-odour, and wherein, lies the dishonour and unseemliness of it,
in order that if not entirely, we may yet partially, cure the evil by
legislation. To effect this is no easy matter, and requires a great deal
of virtue.
Cleinias. What do you mean?
Athenian Stranger. Dear Cleinias, the class of men is small — they must
have been rarely gifted by nature, and trained by education — who, when
assailed by wants and desires, are able to hold out and observe
moderation, and when they might make a great deal of money are sober in
their wishes, and prefer a moderate to a large gain. But the mass of
mankind are the very opposite: their desires are unbounded, and when
they might gain in moderation they prefer gains without limit; wherefore
all that relates to retail trade, and merchandise, and the keeping of
taverns, is denounced and numbered among dishonourable things. For if
what I trust may never be and will not be, we were to compel, if I may
venture to say a ridiculous thing, the best men everywhere to keep
taverns for a time, or carry on retail trade, or do anything of that
sort; or if, in consequence of some fate or necessity, the best women
were compelled to follow similar callings, then we should know how
agreeable and pleasant all these things are; and if all such occupations
were managed on incorrupt principles, they would be honoured as we
honour a mother or a nurse. But now that a man goes to desert places and
builds bouses which can only be reached be long journeys, for the sake
of retail trade, and receives strangers who are in need at the welcome
resting-place, and gives them peace and calm when they are tossed by the
storm, or cool shade in the heat; and then instead of behaving to them
as friends, and showing the duties of hospitality to his guests, treats
them as enemies and captives who are at his mercy, and will not release
them until they have paid the most unjust, abominable, and extortionate
ransom — these are the sort of practices, and foul evils they are, which
cast a reproach upon the succour of adversity. And the legislator ought
always to be devising a remedy for evils of this nature. There is an
ancient saying, which is also a true one — “To fight against two
opponents is a difficult thing,” as is seen in diseases and in many
other cases.
And in this case also the war is against two enemies — wealth and
poverty; one of whom corrupts the soul of man with luxury, while the
other drives him by pain into utter shamelessness. What remedy can a
city of sense find against this disease? In the first place, they must
have as few retail traders as possible; and in the second place, they
must assign the occupation to that class of men whose corruption will be
the least injury to the state; and in the third place, they must devise
some way whereby the followers of these occupations themselves will not
readily fall into habits of unbridled shamelessness and meanness.
After this preface let our law run as follows, and may fortune favour
us: No landowner among the Magnetes, whose city the God is restoring and
resettling — no one, that is, of the 5040 families, shall become a
retail trader either voluntarily or involuntarily; neither shall he be a
merchant, or do any service for private persons unless they equally
serve him, except for his father or his mother, and their fathers and
mothers; and in general for his elders who are freemen, and whom he
serves as a freeman. Now it is difficult to determine accurately the
things which are worthy or unworthy of a freeman, but let those who have
obtained the prize of virtue give judgment about them in accordance with
their feelings of right and wrong.
He who in any way shares in the illiberality of retail trades may be
indicted for dishonouring his race by any one who likes, before those
who have been judged to be the first in virtue; and if he appear to
throw dirt upon his father’s house by an unworthy occupation, let him be
imprisoned for a year and abstain from that sort of thing; and if he
repeat the offence, for two years; and every time that he is convicted
let the length of his imprisonment be doubled.
This shall be the second law: He who engages in retail trade must be
either a metic or a stranger.
And a third law shall be: In order that the retail trader who dwells in
our city may be as good or as little bad as possible, the guardians of
the law shall remember that they are not only guardians of those who may
be easily watched and prevented from becoming lawless or bad, because
they are wellborn and bred; but still more should they have a watch over
those who are of another sort, and follow pursuits which have a very
strong tendency to make men bad. And, therefore, in respect of the
multifarious occupations of retail trade, that is to say, in respect of
such of them as are allowed to remain, because they seem to be quite
necessary in a state — about these the guardians of the law should meet
and take counsel with those who have experience of the several kinds of
retail trade, as we before commanded, concerning adulteration (which is
a matter akin to this), and when they meet they shall consider what
amount of receipts, after deducting expenses, will produce a moderate
gain to the retail trades, and they shall fix in writing and strictly
maintain what they find to be the right percentage of profit; this shall
be seen to by the wardens of the agora, and by the wardens of the city,
and by the wardens of the country. And so retail trade will benefit
every one, and do the least possible injury to those in the state who
practise it.
When a man makes an agreement which he does not fulfil, unless the
agreement be of a nature which the law or a vote of the assembly does
not allow, or which he has made under the influence of some unjust
compulsion, or which he is prevented from fulfilling against his will by
some unexpected chance, the other party may go to law with him in the
courts of the tribes, for not having completed his agreement, if the
parties are not able previously to come to terms before arbiters or
before their neighbours. The class of craftsmen who have furnished human
life with the arts is dedicated to Hephaestus and Athene; and there is a
class of craftsmen who preserve the works of all craftsmen by arts of
defence, the votaries of Ares and Athene, to which divinities they too
are rightly dedicated. All these continue through life serving the
country and the people; some of them are leaders in battle; others make
for hire implements and works, and they ought not to deceive in such
matters, out of respect to the Gods who are their ancestors. If any
craftsman through indolence omit to execute his work in a given time,
not reverencing the God who gives him the means of life, but
considering, foolish fellow, that he is his own God and will let him off
easily, in the first place, he shall suffer at the hands of the God, and
in the second place, the law shall follow in a similar spirit. He shall
owe to him who contracted with him the price of the works which he has
failed in performing, and he shall begin again and execute them gratis
in the given time. When a man undertakes a work, the law gives him the
same advice which was given to the seller, that he should not attempt to
raise the price, but simply ask the value; this the law enjoins also on
the contractor; for the craftsman assuredly knows the value of his work.
Wherefore, in free states the man of art ought not to attempt to impose
upon private individuals by the help of his art, which is by nature a
true thing; and he who is wronged in a matter of this sort, shall have a
right of action against the party who has wronged him. And if any one
lets out work to a craftsman, and does not pay him duly according to the
lawful agreement, disregarding Zeus the guardian of the city and Athene,
who are the partners of the state, and overthrows the foundations of
society for the sake of a little gain, in his case let the law and the
Gods maintain the common bonds of the state.
And let him who, having already received the work in exchange, does not
pay the price in the time agreed, pay double the price; and if a year
has elapsed, although interest is not to be taken on loans, yet for
every drachma which he owes to the contractor let him pay a monthly
interest of an obol. Suits about these matters are to be decided by the
courts of the tribes; and by the way, since we have mentioned craftsmen
at all, we must not forget the other craft of war, in which generals and
tacticians are the craftsmen, who undertake voluntarily the work of our
safety, as other craftsmen undertake other public works; — if they
execute their work well the law will never tire of praising him who
gives them those honours which are the just rewards of the soldier; but
if any one, having already received the benefit of any noble service in
war, does not make the due return of honour, the law will blame him. Let
this then be the law, having an ingredient of praise, not compelling but
advising the great body of the citizens to honour the brave men who are
the saviours of the whole state, whether by their courage or by their
military skill; — they should honour them, I say, in the second place;
for the first and highest tribute of respect is to be given to those who
are able above other men to honour the words of good legislators.
The greater part of the dealings between man and man have been now
regulated by us with the exception of those that relate to orphans and
the supervision of orphans by their guardians. These follow next in
order, and must be regulated in some way. But to arrive at them we must
begin with the testamentary wishes of the dying and the case of those
who may have happened to die intestate. When I said, Cleinias, that we
must regulate them, I had in my mind the difficulty and perplexity in
which all such matters are involved. You cannot leave them unregulated,
for individuals would make regulations at variance with one another, and
repugnant to the laws and habits of the living and to their own previous
habits, if a person were simply allowed to make any will which he
pleased, and this were to take effect in whatever state he may have been
at the end of his life; for most of us lose our senses in a manner, and
feel crushed when we think that we are about to die.
Cle. What do you mean, Stranger?
Ath. O Cleinias, a man when he is about to die is an intractable
creature, and is apt to use language which causes a great deal of
anxiety and trouble to the legislator.
Cle. In what way?
Ath. He wants to have the entire control of all his property, and will
use angry words.
Cle. Such as what?
Ath. O ye Gods, he will say, how monstrous that I am not allowed to
give, or not to give my own to whom I will — less to him who has been
bad to me, and more to him who has been good to me, and whose badness
and goodness have been tested by me in time of sickness or in old age
and in every other sort of fortune!
Cle. Well Stranger, and may he not very fairly say so?
Ath. In my opinion, Cleinias, the ancient legislators were too
good-natured, and made laws without sufficient observation or
consideration of human things.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. I mean, my friend that they were afraid of the testator’s
reproaches, and so they passed a law to the effect that a man should be
allowed to dispose of his property in all respects as he liked; but you
and I, if I am not mistaken, will have something better to say to our
departing citizens.
Cle. What?
Ath. O my friends, we will say to them, hard is it for you, who are
creatures of a day, to know what is yours — hard too, as the Delphic
oracle says, to know yourselves at this hour. Now I, as the legislator,
regard you and your possessions, not as belonging to yourselves, but as
belonging to your whole family, both past and future, and yet more do
regard both family and possessions as belonging to the state; wherefore,
if some one steals upon you with flattery, when you are tossed on the
sea of disease or old age, and persuades you to dispose of your property
in a way that is not for the best, I will not, if I can help, allow
this; but I will legislate with a view to the whole, considering what is
best both for the state and for the family, esteeming as I ought the
feelings of an individual at a lower rate; and I hope that you will
depart in peace and kindness towards us, as you are going the way of all
mankind; and we will impartially take care of all your concerns, not
neglecting any of them, if we can possibly help. Let this be our prelude
and consolation to the living and dying, Cleinias, and let the law be as
follows: He who makes a disposition in a testament, if he be the father
of a family, shall first of all inscribe as his heir any one of his sons
whom he may think fit; and if he gives any of his children to be adopted
by another citizen, let the adoption be inscribed. And if he has a son
remaining over and above who has not been adopted upon any lot, and who
may be expected to be sent out to a colony according to law, to him his
father may give as much as he pleases of the rest of his property, with
the exception of the paternal lot and the fixtures on the lot. And if
there are other sons, let him distribute among them what there is more
than the lot in such portions as he pleases. And if one of the sons has
already a house of his own, he shall not give him of the money, nor
shall he give money to a daughter who has been betrothed, but if she is
not betrothed he may give her money. And if any of the sons or daughters
shall be found to have another lot of land in the country, which has
accrued after the testament has been made, they shall leave the lot
which they have inherited to the heir of the man who has made the will.
If the testator has no sons, but only daughters, let him choose the
husband of any one of his daughters whom he pleases, and leave and
inscribe him as his son and heir. And if a man have lost his son, when
he was a child, and before he could be reckoned among grown-up men,
whether his own or an adopted son, let the testator make mention of the
circumstance and inscribe whom he will to be his second son in hope of
better fortune. If the testator has no children at all, he may select
and give to any one whom he pleases the tenth part of the property which
he has acquired; but let him not be blamed if he gives all the rest to
his adopted son, and makes a friend of him according to the law. If the
sons of a man require guardians, and: the father when he dies leaves a
will appointing guardians, those have been named by him, whoever they
are and whatever their number be, if they are able and willing to take
charge of the children, shall be recognized according to the provisions
of the will. But if he dies and has made no will, or a will in which he
has appointed no guardians, then the next of kin, two on the father’s
and two on the mother’s side, and one of the friends of the deceased,
shall have the authority of guardians, whom the guardians of the law
shall appoint when the orphans require guardians. And the fifteen eldest
guardians of the law shall have the whole care and charge of the
orphans, divided into threes according to seniority — a body of three
for one year, and then another body of three for the next year, until
the cycle of the five periods is complete; and this, as far as possible,
is to continue always. If a man dies, having made no will at all, and
leaves sons who require the care of guardians, they shall share in the
protection which is afforded by these laws.
And if a man dying by some unexpected fate leaves daughters behind him,
let him pardon the legislator if he gives them in marriage, he have a
regard only to two out of three conditions — nearness of kin and the
preservation of the lot, and omits the third condition, which a father
would naturally consider, for he would choose out of all the citizens a
son for himself, and a husband for his daughter, with a view to his
character and disposition — the father, say, shall forgive the
legislator if he disregards this, which to him is an impossible
consideration. Let the law about these matters where practicable be as
follows: If a man dies without making a will, and leaves behind him
daughters, let his brother, being the son of the same father or of the
same mother, having no lot, marry the daughter and have the lot of the
dead man. And if he have no brother, but only a brother’s son, in like
manner let them marry, if they be of a suitable age; and if there be not
even a brother’s son, but only the son of a sister, let them do
likewise, and so in the fourth degree, if there be only the testator’s
father’s brother, or in the fifth degree, his father’s brother’s son, or
in the sixth degree, the child of his father’s sister.
Let kindred be always reckoned in this way: if a person leaves daughters
the relationship shall proceed upwards through brothers and sisters, and
brothers’ and sisters’ children, and first the males shall come, and
after them the females in the same family. The judge shall consider and
determine the suitableness or unsuitableness of age in marriage; he
shall make an inspection of the males naked, and of the women naked down
to the navel. And if there be a lack of kinsmen in a family extending to
grandchildren of a brother, or to the grandchildren of a grandfather’s
children, the maiden may choose with the consent of her guardians any
one of the citizens who is willing and whom she wills, and he shall be
the heir of the dead man, and the husband of his daughter. Circumstances
vary, and there may sometimes be a still greater lack of relations
within the limits of the state; and if any maiden has no kindred living
in the city, and there is some one who has been sent out to a colony,
and she is disposed to make him the heir of her father’s possessions, if
he be indeed of her kindred, let him proceed to take the lot according
to the regulation of the law; but if he be not of her kindred, she
having no kinsmen within the city, and he be chosen by the daughter of
the dead man, and empowered to marry by the guardians, let him return
home and take the lot of him who died intestate. And if a man has no
children, either male or female, and dies without making a will, let the
previous law in general hold; and let a man and a woman go forth from
the family and share the deserted house, and let the lot belong
absolutely to them; and let the heiress in the first degree be a sister,
and in a second degree a daughter of a brother, and in the third, a
daughter of a sister, in the fourth degree the sister of a father, and
in the fifth degree the daughter of a father’s brother, and in a sixth
degree of a father’s sister; and these shall dwell with their male
kinsmen, according to the degree of relationship and right, as we
enacted before. Now we must not conceal from ourselves that such laws
are apt to be oppressive and that there may sometimes be a hardship in
the lawgiver commanding the kinsman of the dead man to marry his
relation; be may be thought not to have considered the innumerable
hindrances which may arise among men in the execution of such
ordinances; for there may be cases in which the parties refuse to obey,
and are ready to do anything rather than marry, when there is some
bodily or mental malady or defect among those who are bidden to marry or
be married. Persons may fancy that the legislator never thought of this,
but they are mistaken; wherefore let us make a common prelude on behalf
of the lawgiver and of his subjects, the law begging the latter to
forgive the legislator, in that he, having to take care of the common
weal, cannot order at the same time the various circumstances of
individuals, and begging him to pardon them if naturally they are
sometimes unable to fulfil the act which he in his ignorance imposes
upon them.
Cle. And how, Stranger, can we act most fairly under the circumstances?
Ath. There must be arbiters chosen to deal with such laws and the
subjects of them.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. I mean to say, that a case may occur in which the nephew, having a
rich father, will be unwilling to marry the daughter of his uncle; he
will have a feeling of pride, and he will wish to look higher. And there
are cases in which the legislator will be imposing upon him the greatest
calamity, and he will be compelled to disobey the law, if he is
required, for example, to take a wife who is mad, or has some other
terrible malady of soul or body, such as makes life intolerable to the
sufferer. Then let what we are saying concerning these cases be embodied
in a law: If any one finds fault with the established laws respecting
testaments, both as to other matters and especially in what relates to
marriage, and asserts that the legislator, if he were alive and present,
would not compel him to obey — that is to say, would not compel those
who are by our law required to marry or be given in marriage, to do
either — and some kinsman or guardian dispute this, the reply is that
the legislator left fifteen of the guardians of the law to be arbiters
and fathers of orphans, male or female, and to them let the disputants
have recourse, and by their aid determine any matters of the kind,
admitting their decision to be final. But if any one thinks that too
great power is thus given to the guardians of the law, let him bring his
adversaries into the court of the select judges, and there have the
points in dispute determined. And he who loses the cause shall have
censure and blame from the legislator, which, by a man of sense, is felt
to be a penalty far heavier than a great loss of money.
Thus will orphan children have a second birth. After their first birth
we spoke of their nurture and education, and after their second birth,
when they have lost their parents, we ought to take measures that the
misfortune of orphanhood may be as little sad to them as possible. In
the first place, we say that the guardians of the law are lawgivers and
fathers to them, not inferior to their natural fathers. Moreover, they
shall take charge of them year by year as of their own kindred; and we
have given both to them and to the children’s own guardians a suitable
admonition concerning the nurture of orphans. And we seem to have spoken
opportunely in our former discourse, when we said that the souls of the
dead have the power after death of taking an interest in human affairs,
about which there are many tales and traditions, long indeed, but true;
and seeing that they are so many and so ancient, we must believe them,
and we must also believe the lawgivers, who tell us that these things
are true, if they are not to be regarded as utter fools.
But if these things are really so, in the first place men should have a
fear of the Gods above, who regard the loneliness of the orphans; and in
the second place of the souls of the departed, who by nature incline to
take an especial care of their own children, and are friendly to those
who honour, and unfriendly to those who dishonour them. Men should also
fear the souls of the living who are aged and high in honour; wherever a
city is well ordered and prosperous, their descendants cherish them, and
so live happily; old persons are quick to see and hear all that relates
to them, and are propitious to those who are just in the fulfilment of
such duties, and they punish those who wrong the orphan and the
desolate, considering that they are the greatest and most sacred of
trusts. To all which matters the guardian and magistrate ought to apply
his mind, if he has any, and take heed of the nurture and education of
the orphans, seeking in every possible way to do them good, for he is
making a contribution to his own good and that of his children.
He who obeys the tale which precedes the law, and does no wrong to an
orphan, will never experience the wrath of the legislator. But he who is
disobedient, and wrongs any one who is bereft of father or mother, shall
pay twice the penalty which he would have paid if he had wronged one
whose parents had been alive. As touching other legislation concerning
guardians in their relation to orphans, or concerning magistrates and
their superintendence of the guardians, if they did not possess examples
of the manner in which children of freemen should be brought up in the
bringing up of their own children, and of the care of their property in
the care of their own, or if they had not just laws fairly stated about
these very things — there would have been reason in making laws for
them, under the idea that they were a peculiar — class, and we might
distinguish and make separate rules for the life of those who are
orphans and of those who are not orphans. But as the case stands, the
condition of orphans with us not different from the case of those who
have father, though in regard to honour and dishonour, and the attention
given to them, the two are not usually placed upon a level.
Wherefore, touching the legislation about orphans, the law speaks in
serious accents, both of persuasion and threatening, and such a threat
as the following will be by no means out of place: He who is the
guardian of an orphan of either sex, and he among the guardians of the
law to whom the superintendence of this guardian has been assigned,
shall love the unfortunate orphan as though he were his own child, and
he shall be as careful and diligent in the management of his possessions
as he would be if they were his own, or even more careful and dilligent.
Let every one who has the care of an orphan observe this law. But any
one who acts contrary to the law on these matters, if he be a guardian
of the child, may be fined by a magistrate, or, if he be himself a
magistrate, the guardian may bring him before the court of select
judges, and punish him, if convicted, by exacting a fine of double the
amount of that inflicted by the court. And if a guardian appears to the
relations of the orphan, or to any other citizen, to act negligently or
dishonestly, let them bring him before the same court, and whatever
damages are given against him, let him pay fourfold, and let half belong
to the orphan and half to him who procured the conviction. If any orphan
arrives at years of discretion, and thinks that he has been ill-used by
his guardians, let him within five years of the expiration of the
guardianship be allowed to bring them to trial; and if any of them be
convicted, the court shall determine what he shall pay or suffer. And if
magistrate shall appear to have wronged the orphan by neglect, and he be
convicted, let the court determine what he shall suffer or pay to the
orphan, and if there be dishonesty in addition to neglect, besides
paying the fine, let him be deposed from his office of guardian of the
law, and let the state appoint another guardian of the law for the city
and for the country in his room.
Greater differences than there ought to be sometimes arise between
fathers and sons, on the part either of fathers who will be of opinion
that the legislator should enact that they may, if they wish, lawfully
renounce their son by the proclamation of a herald in the face of the
world, or of sons who think that they should be allowed to indict their
fathers on the charge of imbecility when they are disabled by disease or
old age. These things only happen, as a matter of fact, where the
natures of men are utterly bad; for where only half is bad, as, for
example, if the father be not bad, but the son be bad, or conversely, no
great calamity is the result of such an amount of hatred as this. In
another state, a son disowned by his father would not of necessity cease
to be a citizen, but in our state, of which these are to be the laws,
the disinherited must necessarily emigrate into another country, for no
addition can be made even of a single family to the 5040 households;
and, therefore, he who deserves to suffer these things must be renounced
not only by his father, who is a single person, but by the whole family,
and what is done in these cases must be regulated by some such law as
the following: He who in the sad disorder of his soul has a mind, justly
or unjustly, to expel from his family a son whom he has begotten and
brought up, shall not lightly or at once execute his purpose; but first
of all he shall collect together his own kinsmen extending to cousins,
and in like manner his son’s kinsmen by the mother’s side, and in their
presence he shall accuse his son, setting forth that he deserves at the
hands of them all to be dismissed from the family; and the son shall be
allowed to address them in a similar manner, and show that he does not
deserve to suffer any of these things. And if the father persuades them,
and obtains the suffrages of more than half of his kindred, exclusive of
the father and mother and the offender himself — I say, if he obtains
more than half the suffrages of all the other grown-up members of the
family, of both sexes, the father shall be permitted to put away his
son, but not otherwise. And if any other citizen is willing to adopt the
son who is put away, no law shall hinder him; for the characters of
young men are subject to many changes in the course of their lives. And
if he has been put away, and in a period of ten years no one is willing
to adopt him, let those who have the care of the superabundant
population which is sent out into colonies, see to him, in order that he
may be suitably provided for in the colony. And if disease or age or
harshness of temper, or all these together, makes a man to be more out
of his mind than the rest of the world are — but this is not observable,
except to those who live with him — and he, being master of his
property, is the ruin of the house, and his son doubts and hesitates
about indicting his father for insanity, let the law in that case or,
that he shall first of all go to the eldest guardians of the law and
tell them of his father’s misfortune, and they shall duly look into the
matter, and take counsel as to whether he shall indict him or not. And
if they advise him to proceed, they shall be both his witnesses and his
advocates; and if the father is cast, he shall henceforth be incapable
of ordering the least particular of his life; let him be as a child
dwelling in the house for the remainder of his days. And if a man and
his wife have an unfortunate incompatibility of temper, ten of the
guardians of the law, who are impartial, and ten of the women who
regulate marriages, shall look to the matter, and if they are able to
reconcile them they shall be formally reconciled; but if their souls are
too much tossed with passion, they shall endeavour to find other
partners. Now they are not likely to have very gentle tempers; and,
therefore, we must endeavour to associate with them deeper and softer
natures.
Those who have no children, or only a few, at the time of their
separation, should choose their new partners with a view to the
procreation of children; but those who have a sufficient number of
children should separate and marry again in order that they may have
some one to grow old with and that the pair may take care of one another
in age. If a woman dies, leaving children, male or female, the law will
advise rather than compel the husband to bring up the children without
introducing into the house a stepmother.
But if he have no children, then he shall be compelled to marry until he
has begotten a sufficient number of sons to his family and to the state.
And if a man dies leaving a sufficient number of children, the mother of
his children shall remain with them and bring, them up. But if she
appears to be too young to live virtuously without a husband, let her
relations communicate with the women who superintend marriage, and let
both together do what they think best in these matters; if there is a
lack of children, let the choice be made with a view to having them; two
children, one of either sex, shall be deemed sufficient in the eye of
the law. When a child is admitted to be the offspring of certain parents
and is acknowledged by them, but there is need of a decision as to which
parent the child is to follow — in case a female slave have intercourse
with a male slave, or with a freeman or freedman, the offspring shall
always belong to the master of the female slave. Again, if a free woman
have intercourse with a male slave, the offspring shall belong to the
master of the slave; but if a child be born either of a slave by her
master, or of his mistress by a slave — and this be provence offspring
of the woman and its father shall be sent away by the women who
superintend marriage into another country, and the guardians of the law
shall send away the offspring of the man and its mother.
Neither God, nor a man who has understanding, will ever advise any one
to neglect his parents. To a discourse concerning the honour and
dishonour of parents, a prelude such as the following, about the service
of the Gods, will be a suitable introduction: There are ancient customs
about the Gods which are universal, and they are of two kinds: some of
the Gods we see with our eyes and we honour them, of others we honour
the images, raising statues of them which we adore; and though they are
lifeless, yet we imagine that the living Gods have a good will and
gratitude to us on this account. Now, if a man has a father or mother,
or their fathers or mothers treasured up in his house stricken in years,
let him consider that no statue can be more potent to grant his requests
than they are, who are sitting at his hearth if only he knows how to
show true service to them.
Cle. And what do you call the true mode of service?
Ath. I will tell you, O my friend, for such things are worth listening
to.
Cle. Proceed.
Ath. Oedipus, as tradition says, when dishonoured by his sons, invoked
on them curses which every one declares to have been heard and ratified
by the Gods, and Amyntor in his wrath invoked curses on his son Phoenix,
and Theseus upon Hippolytus, and innumerable others have also called
down wrath upon their children, whence it is clear that the Gods listen
to the imprecations of parents; for the curses of parents are, as they
ought to be, mighty against their children as no others are. And shall
we suppose that the prayers of a father or mother who is specially
dishonoured by his or her children, are heard by the Gods in accordance
with nature; and that if a parent is honoured by them, and in the
gladness of his heart earnestly entreats the Gods in his prayers to do
them good, he is not equally heard, and that they do not minister to his
request? If not, they would be very unjust ministers of good, and that
we affirm to be contrary to their nature.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. May we not think, as I was saying just now, that we can possess no
image which is more honoured by the Gods, than that of a father or
grandfather, or of a mother stricken in years? whom when a man honours,
the heart of the God rejoices, and he is ready to answer their prayers.
And, truly, the figure of an ancestor is a wonderful thing, far higher
than that of a lifeless image. For the living, when they are honoured by
us, join in our prayers, and when they are dishonoured, they utter
imprecations against us; but lifeless objects do neither. And therefore,
if a man makes a right use of his father and grandfather and other aged
relations, he will have images which above all others will win him the
favour of the Gods.
Cle. Excellent.
Ath. Every man of any understanding fears and respects the prayers of
parents, knowing well that many times and to many persons they have been
accomplished. Now these things being thus ordered by nature, good men
think it a blessing from heaven if their parents live to old age and
reach the utmost limit of human life, or if taken away before their time
they are deeply regretted by them; but to bad men parents are always a
cause of terror. Wherefore let every man honour with every sort of
lawful honour his own parents, agreeably to what has now been said. But
if this prelude be an unmeaning sound in the cars of any one, let the
law follow, which may be rightly imposed in these terms: If any one in
this city be not sufficiently careful of his parents, and do not regard
and gratify in every respect their wishes more than those of his sons
and of his other offspring or of himself — let him who experiences this
sort of treatment either come himself, or send some one to inform the
three eldest guardians of the law, and three of the women who have the
care of marriages; and let them look to the matter and punish youthful
evil-doers with stripes and bonds if they are under thirty years of age,
that is to say, if they be men, or if they be women, let them undergo
the same punishment up to forty years of age. But if, when they are
still more advanced in years, they continue the same neglect of their
parents, and do any hurt to any of them, let them be brought before a
court in which every single one of the eldest citizens shall be the
judges, and if the offender be convicted, let the court determine what
he ought to pay or suffer, and any penalty may be imposed on him which a
man can pay or suffer. If the person who has been wronged be unable to
inform the magistrates, let any freeman who hears of his case inform,
and if he do not, he shall be deemed base, and shall be liable to have a
suit for damage brought against him by any one who likes. And if a slave
inform, he shall receive freedom; and if he be the slave of the injurer
or injured party, he shall be set free by the magistrates, or if he
belong to any other citizen, the public shall pay a price on his behalf
to the owner; and let the magistrates take heed that no one wrongs him
out of revenge, because he has given information.
Cases in which one man injures another by poisons, and which prove
fatal, have been already discussed; but about other cases in which a
person intentionally and of malice harms another with meats, or drinks,
or ointments, nothing has as yet been determined.
For there are two kinds of poisons used among men, which cannot clearly
be distinguished. There is the kind just now explicitly mentioned, which
injures bodies by the use of other bodies according to a natural law;
there is also another kind which persuades the more daring class that
they can do injury by sorceries, and incantations, and magic knots, as
they are termed, and makes others believe that they above all persons
are injured by the powers of the magician. Now it is not easy to know
the nature of all these things; nor if a man do know can he readily
persuade others to believe him. And when men are disturbed in their
minds at the sight of waxen images fixed either at their doors, or in a
place where three ways meet, or on the sepulchres of parents, there is
no use in trying to persuade them that they should despise all such
things because they have no certain knowledge about them. But we must
have a law in two parts, concerning poisoning, in whichever of the two
ways the attempt is made, and we must entreat, and exhort, and advise
men not to have recourse to such practices, by which they scare the
multitude out of their wits, as if they were children, compelling the
legislator and the judge to heal the fears which the sorcerer arouses,
and to tell them in the first place, that he who attempts to poison or
enchant others knows not what he is doing, either as regards the body
(unless he has a knowledge of medicine), or as regards his enchantments
(unless he happens to be a prophet or diviner). Let the law, then, run
as follows about poisoning or witchcraft: He who employs poison to do
any injury, not fatal, to a man himself, or to his servants, or any
injury, whether fatal or not, to his cattle or his bees, if he be a
physician, and be convicted of poisoning, shall be punished with death;
or if he be a private person, the court shall determine what he is to
pay or suffer. But he who seems to be the sort of man injures others by
magic knots, or enchantments, or incantations, or any of the like
practices, if he be a prophet or diviner, let him die; and if, not being
a prophet, he be convicted of witchcraft, as in the previous case, let
the court fix what he ought to pay or suffer.
When a man does another any injury by theft or violence, for the greater
injury let him pay greater damages to the injured man, and less for the
smaller injury; but in all cases, whatever the injury may have been, as
much as will compensate the loss. And besides the compensation of the
wrong, let a man pay a further penalty for the chastisement of his
offence: he who has done the wrong instigated by the folly of another,
through the lightheartedness of youth or the like, shall pay a lighter
penalty; but he who has injured another through his own folly, when
overcome by pleasure or pain, in cowardly fear, or lust, or envy, or
implacable anger, shall endure a heavier punishment. Not that he is
punished because he did wrong, for that which is done can never be
undone, but in order that in future times, he, and those who see him
corrected, may utterly hate injustice, or at any rate abate much of
their evil-doing.
Having an eye to all these things, the law, like a good archer, should
aim at the right measure of punishment, and in all cases at the deserved
punishment. In the attainment of this the judge shall be a fellow-worker
with the legislator, whenever the law leaves to him to determine what
the offender shall suffer or pay; and the legislator, like a painter,
shall give a rough sketch of the cases in which the law is to be
applied. This is what we must do, Megillus and Cleinias, in the best and
fairest manner that we can, saying what the punishments are to be of all
actions of theft and violence, and giving laws of such a kind as the
Gods and sons of Gods would have us give.
If a man is mad he shall not be at large in the city, but his relations
shall keep him at home in any way which they can; or if not, let them
pay a penalty — he who is of the highest class shall pay a penalty of
one hundred drachmae, whether he be a slave or a freeman whom he
neglects; and he of the second class shall pay four-fifths of a mina;
and he of the third class three-fifths; and he of the fourth class
two-fifths. Now there are many sorts of madness, some arising out of
disease, which we have already mentioned; and there are other kinds,
which originate in an evil and passionate temperament, and are increased
by bad education; out of a slight quarrel this class of madmen will
often raise a storm of abuse against one another, and nothing of that
sort ought to be allowed to occur in a well-ordered state. Let this,
then, be the law about abuse, which shall relate to all cases: No one
shall speak evil of another; and when a man disputes with another he
shall teach and learn of the disputant and the company, but he shall
abstain from evilspeaking; for out of the imprecations which men utter
against one another, and the feminine habit of casting aspersions on one
another, and using foul names, out of words light as air, in very deed
the greatest enmities and hatreds spring up. For the speaker gratifies
his anger, which is an ungracious element of his nature; and nursing up
his wrath by the entertainment of evil thoughts, and exacerbating that
part of his soul which was formerly civilized by education, he lives in
a state of savageness and moroseness, and pays a bitter penalty for his
anger.
And in such cases almost all men take to saying something ridiculous
about their opponent, and there is no man who is in the habit of
laughing at another who does not miss virtue and earnestness altogether,
or lose the better half of greatness. Wherefore let no one utter any
taunting word at a temple, or at the public sacrifices, or at games, or
in the agora, or in a court of justice, or in any public assembly. And
let the magistrate who presides on these occasions chastise an offender,
and he shall be blameless; but if he fails in doing so, he shall not
claim the prize of virtue; for he is one who heeds not the laws, and
does not do what the legislator commands.
And if in any other place any one indulges in these sort of revilings,
whether he has begun the quarrel or is only retaliating, let any elder
who is present support the law, and control with blows those who indulge
in passion, which is another great evil; and if he do not, let him be
liable to pay the appointed penalty. And we say now, that he who deals
in reproaches against others cannot reproach them without attempting to
ridicule them; and this, when done in a moment of anger, is what we make
matter of reproach against him. But then, do we admit into our state the
comic writers who are so fond of making mankind ridiculous, if they
attempt in a good-natured manner to turn the laugh against our citizens?
or do we draw the distinction of jest and earnest, and allow a man to
make use of ridicule in jest and without anger about any thing or
person; though as we were saying, not if he be angry have a set purpose?
We forbid earnest — that is unalterably fixed; but we have still to say
who are to be sanctioned or not to be sanctioned by the law in the
employment of innocent humour. A comic poet, or maker of iambic or
satirical lyric verse, shall not be permitted to ridicule any of the
citizens, either by word or likeness, either in anger or without anger.
And if any one is disobedient, the judges shall either at once expel him
from the country, or he shall pay a fine of three minae, which shall be
dedicated to the God who presides over the contests. Those only who have
received permission shall be allowed to write verses at one another, but
they shall be without anger and in jest; in anger and in serious earnest
they shall not be allowed. The decision of this matter shall be left to
the superintendent of the general education of the young, and whatever
he may license, the writer shall be allowed to produce, and whatever he
rejects let not the poet himself exhibit, or ever teach anybody else,
slave or freeman, under the penalty of being dishonoured, and held
disobedient to the laws.
Now he is not to be pitied who is hungry, or who suffers any bodily
pain, but he who is temperate, or has some other virtue, or part of a
virtue, and at the same time suffers from misfortune; it would be an
extraordinary thing if such an one, whether slave or freeman, were
utterly forsaken and fell into the extremes of poverty in any tolerably
well-ordered city or government. Wherefore the legislator may safely
make a law applicable to such cases in the following terms: Let there be
no beggars in our state; and if anybody begs, seeking to pick up a
livelihood by unavailing prayers, let the wardens of the agora turn him
out of the agora, and the wardens of the city out of the city, and the
wardens of the country send him out of any other parts of the land
across the border, in order that the land may be cleared of this sort of
animal.
If a slave of either sex injure anything, which is not his or her own,
through inexperience, or some improper practice, and the person who
suffers damage be not himself in part to blame, the master of the slave
who has done the harm shall either make full satisfaction, or give up
the slave who has done the injury. But if master argue that the charge
has arisen by collusion between the injured party and the injurer, with
the view of obtaining the slave, let him sue the person, who says that
he has been injured, for malpractices.
And if he gain a conviction, let him receive double the value which the
court fixes as the price of the slave; and if he lose his suit, let him
make amends for the injury, and give up the slave.
And if a beast of burden, or horse, or dog, or any other animal, injure
the property of a neighbour, the owner shall in like manner pay for the
injury.
If any man refuses to be a witness, he who wants him shall summon him,
and he who is summoned shall come to the trial; and if he knows and is
willing to bear witness, let him bear witness, but if he says he does
not know let him swear by the three divinities Zeus, and Apollo, and
Themis, that he does not, and have no more to do with the cause. And he
who is summoned to give witness and does not answer to his summoner,
shall be liable for the harm which ensues according to law. And if a
person calls up as a witness any one who is acting as a judge, let him
give his witness, but he shall not afterwards vote in the cause. A free
woman may give her witness and plead, if she be more than forty years of
age, and may bring an action if she have no husband; but if her husband
be alive she shall only be allowed to bear witness.
A slave of either sex and a child shall be allowed to give evidence and
to plead, but only in cases of murder; and they must produce sufficient
sureties that they will certainly remain until the trial, in case they
should be charged with false witness. And either of the parties in a
cause may bring an accusation of perjury against witnesses, touching
their evidence in whole or in part, if he asserts that such evidence has
been given; but the accusation must be brought previous to the final
decision of the cause. The magistrates shall preserve the accusations of
false witness, and have them kept under the seal of both parties, and
produce them on the day when the trial for false witness takes place. If
a man be twice convicted of false witness, he shall not be required, and
if thrice, he shall not be allowed to bear witness; and if he dare to
witness after he has been convicted three times, let any one who pleases
inform against him to the magistrates, and let the magistrates hand him
over to the court, and if he be convicted he shall be punished with
death. And in any case in which the evidence is rightly found to be
false, and yet to have given the victory to him who wins the suit, and
more than half the witnesses are condemned, the decision which was
gained by these means shall be a discussion and a decision as to whether
the suit was determined by that false evidence or and in whichever way
the decision may be given, the previous suit shall be determined
accordingly.
There are many noble things in human life, but to most of them attach
evils which are fated to corrupt and spoil them. Is not justice noble,
which has been the civilizer of humanity? How then can the advocate of
justice be other than noble? And yet upon this profession which is
presented to us under the fair name of art has come an evil reputation.
In the first place; we are told that by ingenious pleas and the help of
an advocate the law enables a man to win a particular cause, whether
just or unjust; and the power of speech which is thereby imparted, are
at the service of him sho is willing to pay for them. Now in our state
this so-called art, whether really an art or only an experience and
practice destitute of any art, ought if possible never to come into
existence, or if existing among us should litten to the request of the
legislator and go away into another land, and not speak contrary to
justice. If the offenders obey we say no more; but those who disobey,
the voice of the law is as follows: If anyone thinks that he will
pervert the power of justice in the minds of the judges, and
unseasonably litigate or advocate, let any one who likes indict him for
malpractices of law and dishonest advocacy, and let him be judged in the
court of select judges; and if he be convicted, let the court determine
whether he may be supposed to act from a love of money or from
contentiousness. And if he is supposed to act from contentiousness, the
court shall fix a time during which he shall not be allowed to institute
or plead a cause; and if he is supposed to act as be does from love of
money, in case he be a stranger, he shall leave the country, and never
return under penalty of death; but if he be a citizen, he shall die,
because he is a lover of money, in whatever manner gained; and equally,
if he be judged to have acted more than once from contentiousness, he
shall die.
BOOK XII
If a herald or an ambassador carry a false message from our city to any
other, or bring back a false message from the city to which he is sent,
or be proved to have brought back, whether from friends or enemies, in
his capacity of herald or ambassador, what they have never said, let him
be indicted for having violated, contrary to the law, the commands and
duties imposed upon him by Hermes and Zeus, and let there be a penalty
fixed, which he shall suffer or pay if he be convicted.
Theft is a mean, and robbery a shameless thing; and none of the sons of
Zeus delight in fraud and violence, or ever practised, either. Wherefore
let no one be deluded by poets or mythologers into a mistaken belief of
such such things, nor let him suppose, when he thieves or is guilty of
violence, that he is doing nothing base, but only what the Gods
themselves do. For such tales are untrue and improbable; and he who
steals or robs contrary to the law, is never either a God or the son of
a God; of this the legislator ought to be better informed than all the,
poets put together. Happy is he and may he be forever happy, who is
persuaded and listens to our words; but he who disobeys shall have to
contend against the following law: If a man steal anything belonging to
the public, whether that which he steals be much or little, he shall
have the same punishment. For he who steals a little steals with the
same wish as he who steals much, but with less power, and he who takes
up a greater amount; not having deposited it, is wholly unjust.
Wherefore the law is not disposed to inflict a less penalty on the one
than on the other because his theft, is less, but on the ground that the
thief may possibly be in one case still curable, and may in another case
be incurable. If any one convict in a court of law a stranger or a slave
of a theft of public property, let the court determine what punishment
he shall suffer, or what penalty he shall pay, bearing in mind that he
is probably not incurable. But the citizen who has been brought up as
our citizens will have been, if he be found guilty of robbing his
country by fraud or violence, whether he be caught in the act or not,
shall be punished with death; for he is incurable.
Now for expeditions of war much consideration and many laws are
required; the great principle of all is that no one of either sex should
be without a commander; nor should the mind of any one be accustomed to
do anything, either in jest or earnest, of his own motion, but in war
and in peace he should look to and follow his leader, even in the least
things being under his guidance; for example, he should stand or move,
or exercise, or wash, or take his meals, or get up in the night to keep
guard and deliver messages when he is bidden; and in the hour of danger
he should not pursue and not retreat except by order of his superior;
and in a word, not teach the soul or accustom her to know or understand
how to do anything apart from others. Of all soldiers the life should be
always and in all things as far as possible in common and together;
there neither is nor ever will be a higher, or better, or more
scientific principle than this for the attainment of salvation and
victory in war. And we ought in time of peace from youth upwards to
practise this habit of commanding others, and of being commanded by
others; anarchy should have no place in the life of man or of the beasts
who are subject to man. I may add that all dances ought to be performed
with view to military excellence; and agility and ease should be
cultivated for the same object, and also endurance of the want of meats
and drinks, and of winter cold and summer heat, and of hard couches;
and, above all, care should be taken not to destroy the peculiar
qualities of the head and the feet by surrounding them with extraneous
coverings, and so hindering their natural growth of hair and soles. For
these are the extremities, and of all the parts of the body, whether
they are preserved or not is of the greatest consequence; the one is the
servant of the whole body, and the other the master, in whom all the
ruling senses are by nature set. Let the young man imagine that he hears
in what has preceded the praises of the military life; the law shall be
as follows: He shall serve in war who is on the roll or appointed to
some special service, and if any one is absent from cowardice, and
without the leave of the generals; he shall be indicted before the
military commanders for failure of service when the army comes home; and
the soldiers shall be his judges; the heavy armed, and the cavalry, and
the other arms of the service shall form separate courts; and they shall
bring the heavy-armed before the heavy-armed, and the horsemen before
the horsemen, and the others in like manner before their peers; and he
who is found guilty shall never be allowed to compete for any prize of
valour, or indict another for not serving on an expedition, or be an
accuser at all in any military matters. Moreover, the court shall
further determine what punishment he shall suffer, or what penalty he
shall pay. When the suits for failure of service are completed, the
leaders of the several kinds of troops shall again hold an assembly, and
they shall adjudge the prizes of valour; and he who likes shall give
judgment in his own branch of the service, saying nothing about any
former expedition, nor producing any proof or witnesses to confirm his
statement, but speaking only of the present occasion. The crown of
victory shall be an olive wreath which the victor shall offer up the
temple of any war-god whom he likes, adding an inscription for a
testimony to last during life, that such an one has received the first,
the second, or prize. If any one goes on an expedition, and returns home
before the appointed time, when the generals. have not withdrawn the
army, be shall be indicted for desertion before the same persons who
took cognisance of failure of service, and if he be found guilty, the
same punishment shall be inflicted on him.
Now every man who is engaged in any suit ought to be very careful of
bringing false witness against any one, either intentionally or
unintentionally, if he can help; for justice is truly said to be an
honourable maiden, and falsehood is naturally repugnant to honour and
justice. A witness ought to be very careful not to sift against justice,
as for example in what relates to the throwing away of arms — he must
distinguish the throwing them away when necessary, and not make that a
reproach, or bring in action against some innocent person on that
account. To make the distinction maybe difficult; but still the law must
attempt to define the different kinds in some way. Let me endeavour to
explain my meaning by an ancient tale: If Patroclus had been brought to
the tent still alive but without his arms (and this has happened to
innumerable persons), the original arms, which the poet says were
presented to Peleus by the Gods as a nuptial gift when he married.
Thetis, remaining in the hands of Hector, then the base spirits of that
day might have reproached the son of Menoetius with having cast away his
arms. Again, there is the case of those who have been thrown down
precipices and lost their arms; and of those who at sea, and in stormy
places, have been suddenly overwhelmed by floods of water; and there are
numberless things of this kind which one might adduce by way of
extenuation, and with the view of justifying a misfortune which is
easily misrepresented. We must, therefore, endeavour to divide to the
best of our power the greater and more serious evil from the lesser. And
a distinction may be drawn in the use of terms of reproach. A man does
not always deserve to be called the thrower away of his shield; he may
be only the loser of his arms. For there is a great or rather absolute
difference between him who is deprived of his arms by a sufficient
force, and him who voluntarily lets his shield go. Let the law then be
as follows: If a person having arms is overtaken by the enemy and does
not turn round and defend himself, but lets them go voluntarily or
throws them away, choosing a base life and a swift escape rather than a
courageous and noble and blessed death — in such a case of the throwing
away of arms let justice be done, but the judge need take no note of the
case just now mentioned; for the bad man ought always to be punished, in
the hope that he may be improved, but not the unfortunate, for there is
no advantage in that. And what shall be the punishment suited to him who
has thrown away his weapons of defence? Tradition says that Caeneus, the
Thessalian, was changed by a God from a woman into a man; but the
converse miracle cannot now be wrought, or no punishment would be more
proper than that the man who throws away his shield should be changed
into a woman. This however is impossible, and therefore let us make a
law as nearly like this as we can — that he who loves his life too well
shall be in no danger for the remainder of his days, but shall live for
ever under the stigma of cowardice. And let the law be in the following
terms: When a man is found guilty of disgracefully throwing away his
arms in war, no general or military officer shall allow him to serve as
a soldier, or give him any place at all in the ranks of soldiers; and
the officer who gives the coward any place, shall suffer a penalty which
the public examiner shall exact of him; and if he be of the highest
dass, he shall pay a thousand drachmae; or if he be of the second class,
five minae; or if he be of the third, three minae; or if he be of the
fourth class, one mina. And he who is found guilty of cowardice, shall
not only be dismissed from manly dangers, which is a disgrace
appropriate to his nature, but he shall pay a thousand drachmae, if he
be of the highest class, and five minae if he be of the second class,
and three if he be of the third class, and a mina, like the preceding,
if he be of the fourth class.
What regulations will be proper about examiners, seeing that some of our
magistrates are elected by lot, and for a year, and some for a longer
time and from selected persons? Of such magistrates, who will be a
sufficient censor or examiner, if any of them, weighed down by the
pressure of office or his own inability to support the dignity of his
office, be guilty of any crooked practice? It is by no means easy to
find a magistrate who excels other magistrates in virtue, but still we
must endeavour to discover some censor or examiner who is more than man.
For the truth is, that there are many elements of dissolution in a
state, as there are also in a ship, or in an animal; they all have their
cords, and girders, and sinews — one nature diffused in many places, and
called by many names; and the office of examiner is a most important
element in the preservation and dissolution of states. For if the
examiners are better than the magistrates, and their duty is fulfilled
justly and without blame, then the whole state and country flourishes
and is happy; but if the examination of the magistrates is carried on in
a wrong way, then, by the relaxation of that justice which is the
uniting principle of all constitutions, every power in the state is rent
asunder from every other; they no longer incline in the same direction,
but fill the city with faction, and make many cities out of one, and
soon bring all to destruction. Wherefore the examiners ought to be
admirable in every sort of virtue. Let us invent a mode of creating
them, which shall be as follows: Every year, after the summer solstice,
the whole city shall meet in the common precincts of Helios and Apollo,
and shall present to the God three men out of their own number in the
manner following: Each citizen shall select, not himself, but some other
citizen whom he deems in every way the best, and who is not less than
fifty years of age. And out of the selected persons who have the
greatest number of votes, they shall make a further selection until they
reduce them to one-half, if they are an even number; but if they are not
an even number, they shall subtract the one who has the smallest number
of votes, and make them an even number, and then leave the half which
have the great number of votes. And if two persons have an equal number
of votes, and thus increase the number beyond one-half, they shall
withdraw the younger of the two and do away with the excess; and then
including all the rest they shall again vote, until there are left three
having an unequal number of votes. But if all the three, or two out of
the three, have equal votes, let them commit the election to good fate
and fortune, and separate off by lot the first, and the second, and the
third; these they shall crown with an olive wreath and give them the
prize of excellence, at the same time proclaiming to all the world that
the city of the Magnetes, by providence of the Gods, is again preserved,
and presents to the Sun and to Apollo her three best men as
first-fruits, to be a common offering to them, according to the ancient
law, as long as their lives answer to the judgment formed of them. And
these shall appoint in their first year twelve examiners, to continue
until each has completed seventy-five years, to whom three shall
afterwards be added yearly; and let these divide all the magistracies
into twelve parts, and prove the holders of them by every sort of test
to which a freeman may be subjected; and let them live while they hold
office in the precinct of Helios and Apollo, in which they were chosen,
and let each one form a judgment of some things individually, and of
others in company with his colleagues; and let him place a writing in
the agora about each magistracy, and what the magistrate ought to suffer
or pay, according to the decision of the examiners. And if a magistrate
does not admit that he has been justly judged, let him bring the
examiners before the select judges, and if he be acquitted by their
decision, let him, if he will, accuse the examiners themselves; if,
however, he be convicted, and have been condemned to death by the
examiners, let him die (and of course he can only die once): but any
other penalties which admit of being doubled let him suffer twice over.
And now let us pass under review the examiners themselves; what will
their examination be, and how conducted? During the life of these men,
whom the whole state counts worthy of the rewards of virtue, they shall
have the first seat at all public assemblies, and at all Hellenic
sacrifices and sacred missions, and other public and holy ceremonies in
which they share. The chiefs of each sacred mission shall be selected
from them, and they only of all the citizens shall be adorned with a
crown of laurel; they shall all be priests of Apollo and Helios; and one
of them, who is judged first of the priests created in that year, shall
be high priest; and they shall write up his name in each year to be a
measure of time as long as the city lasts; and after their death they
shall be laid out and carried to the grave and entombed in a manner
different from the other citizens. They shall be decked in a robe all of
white, and there shall be no crying or lamentation over them; but a
chorus of fifteen maidens, and another of boys, shall stand around the
bier on either side, hymning the praises of the departed priests in
alternate responses, declaring their blessedness in song all day long;
and at dawn a hundred of the youths who practise gymnastic and whom the
relations of the departed shall choose, shall carry the bier to the
sepulchre, the young men marching first, dressed in the garb of warriors
— the cavalry with their horses, the heavy-armed with their arms, and
the others in like manner. And boys neat the bier and in front of it
shall sing their national hymn, and maidens shall follow behind, and
with them the women who have passed the age of childbearing; next,
although they are interdicted from other burials, let priests and
priestesses follow, unless the Pythian oracle forbid them; for this
burial is free from pollution.
The place of burial shall be an oblong vaulted chamber underground,
constructed of tufa, which will last for ever, having stone couches
placed side by side. And here they will lay the blessed person, and
cover the sepulchre with a circular mound of earth and plant a grove of
trees around on every side but one; and on that side the sepulchre shall
be allowed to extend for ever, and a new mound will not be required.
Every year they shall have contests in music and gymnastics, and in
horsemanship, in honour of the dead. These are the honours which shall
be given to those who at the examination are found blameless; but if any
of them, trusting to the scrutiny being over, should, after the judgment
has been given, manifest the wickedness of human nature, let the law
ordain that he who pleases shall indict him, and let the cause be tried
in the following manner. In the first place, the court shall be composed
of the guardians of the law, and to them the surviving examiners shall
be added, as well as the court of select judges; and let the pursuer lay
his indictment in this form — he shall say that so-and-so is unworthy of
the prize of virtue and of his office; and if the defendant be convicted
let him be deprived of his office, and of the burial, and of the other
honours given him. But if the prosecutor do not obtain the fifth part of
the votes, let him, if he be of the first dass, pay twelve minae, and
eight if he be of the second class, and six if he be of the third dass,
and two minae if he be of the fourth class.
The so-called decision of Rhadamanthus is worthy of all admiration. He
knew that the men of his own time believed and had no doubt that there
were Gods, which was a reasonable belief in those days, because most men
were the sons of Gods, and according to tradition he was one himself. He
appears to have thought that he ought to commit judgment to no man, but
to the Gods only, and in this way suits were simply and speedily decided
by him. For he made the two parties take an oath respecting the points
in dispute, and so got rid of the matter speedily and safely. But now
that a certain portion of mankind do not believe at all in the existence
of the Gods, and others imagine that they have no care of us, and the
opinion of most men, and of the men, is that in return for small
sacrifice and a few flattering words they will be their accomplices in
purloining large sums and save them from many terrible punishments, the
way of Rhadamanthus is no longer suited to the needs of justice; for as
the needs of men about the Gods are changed, the laws should also be
changed; — in the granting of suits a rational legislation ought to do
away with the oaths of the parties on either side — he who obtains leave
to bring an action should write, down the charges, but should not add an
oath; and the defendant in like manner should give his denial to the
magistrates in writing, and not swear; for it is a dreadful thing to
know, when many lawsuits are going on in a state that almost half the
people who meet one another quite unconcernedly at the public meals and
in other companies and relations of private life are perjured. Let the
law, then, be as follows: A judge who is about to give judgment shall
take an oath, and he who is choosing magistrates for the state shall
either vote on oath or with a voting tablet which he brings from a
temple; so too the judge of dances and of all music, and the
superintendents and umpires of gymnastic and equestrian contests, and
any matters in which, as far as men can judge, there is nothing to be
gained by a false oath; but all cases in which a denial confirmed by an
o
Ath. clearly results in a great advantage to the taker of the oath,
shall be decided without the oath of the parties to the suit, and the
presiding judges shall not permit either of them. to use an oath for the
sake of persuading, nor to call down curses on himself and his race, nor
to use unseemly supplications or womanish laments. But they shall ever
be teaching and learning what is just in auspicious words; and he who
does otherwise shall be supposed to speak beside the point, and the
judges shall again bring him back to the question at issue. On the other
hand, strangers in their dealings with strangers shall as at present
have power to give and receive oaths, for they will not often grow old
in the city or leave a fry of young ones like themselves to be the sons
and heirs of the land.
As to the initiation of private suits, let the manner of deciding causes
between all citizens be the same as in cases in which any freeman is
disobedient to the state in minor matters, of which the penalty is not
stripes, imprisonment, or death. But as regards attendance at choruses
or processions or other shows, and as regards public services, whether
the celebration of sacrifice in peace, or the payment of contributions
in war — in all these cases, first comes the necessity of providing
remedy for the loss; and by those who will not obey, there shall be
security given to the officers whom the city and the law empower to
exact the sum due; and if they forfeit their security, let the goods
which they have pledged be, and the money given to the city; but if they
ought to pay a larger sum, the several magistrates shall impose upon the
disobedient a suitable penalty, and bring them before the court, until
they are willing to do what they are ordered.
Now a state which makes money from the cultivation of the soil only, and
has no foreign trade, must consider what it will do about the emigration
of its own people to other countries, and the reception of strangers
from elsewhere. About these matters the legislator has to consider, and
he will begin by trying to persuade men as far as he can. The
intercourse of cities with one another is apt to create a confusion of
manners; strangers, are always suggesting novelties to strangers. When
states are well governed by good laws the mixture causes the greatest
possible injury; but seeing that most cities are the reverse of
well-ordered, the confusion which arises in them from the reception of
strangers, and from the citizens themselves rushing off into other
cities, when any one either young or old desires to travel anywhere
abroad at whatever time, is of no consequence. On the other hand, the
refusal of states to receive others, and for their own citizens never to
go to other places, is an utter impossibility, and to the rest of the
world is likely to appear ruthless and uncivilized; it is a practise
adopted by people who use harsh words, such as xenelasia or banishment
of strangers, and who have harsh and morose ways, as men think.
And to be thought or not to be thought well of by the rest of the world
is no light matter; for the many are not so far wrong in their judgment
of who are bad and who are good, as they are removed from the nature of
virtue in themselves. Even bad men have a divine instinct which guesses
rightly, and very many who are utterly depraved form correct notions and
judgments of the differences between the good and bad. And the
generality of cities are quite right in exhorting us to value a good
reputation in the world, for there is no truth greater and more
important than this — that he who is really good (I am speaking of the
man who would be perfect) seeks for reputation with, but not without,
the reality of goodness. And our Cretan colony ought also to acquire the
fairest and noblest reputation for virtue from other men; and there is
every reason to expect that, if the reality answers to the idea, she
will before of the few well-ordered cities which the sun and the other
Gods behold.
Wherefore, in the matter of journeys to other countries and the
reception of strangers, we enact as follows: In the first place, let no
one be allowed to go anywhere at all into a foreign country who is less
than forty years of age; and no one shall go in a private capacity, but
only in some public one, as a herald, or on an embassy; or on a sacred
mission. Going abroad on an expedition or in war, not to be included
among travels of the class authorized by the state.
To Apollo at Delphi and to Zeus at Olympia and to Nemea and to the
Isthmus, — citizens should be sent to take part in the sacrifices and
games there dedicated to the Gods; and they should send as many as
possible, and the best and fairest that can be found, and they will make
the city renowned at holy meetings in time of peace, procuring a glory
which shall be the converse of that which is gained in war; and when
they come home they shall teach the young that the institutions of other
states are inferior to their own.
And they shall send spectators of another sort, if they have the consent
of the guardians, being such citizens as desire to look a little more at
leisure at the doings of other men; and these no law shall hinder. For a
city which has no experience of good and bad men or intercourse with
them, can never be thoroughly, and perfectly civilized, nor, again, can
the citizens of a city properly observe the laws by habit only, and
without an intelligent understanding of them. And there always are in
the world a few inspired men whose acquaintance is beyond price, and who
spring up quite as much in ill-ordered as in well-ordered cities. These
are they whom the citizens of a well ordered city should be ever seeking
out, going forth over sea and over land to find him who is incorruptible
— that he may establish more firmly institutions in his own state which
are good already; and amend what is deficient; for without this
examination and enquiry a city will never continue perfect any more than
if the examination is ill-conducted.
Cleinias. How can we have an examination and also a good one?
Athenian Stranger. In this way: In the first place, our spectator shall
be of not less than fifty years of age; he must be a man of reputation,
especially in war, if he is to exhibit to other cities a model of the
guardians of the law, but when he is more than sixty years of age he
shall no longer continue in his office of spectator, And when he has
carried on his inspection during as many out of the ten years of his
office as he pleases, on his return home let him go to the assembly of
those who review the laws. This shall be a mixed body of young and old
men, who shall be required to meet daily between the hour of dawn and
the rising of the sun. They shall consist, in the first place, of the
priests who have obtained the rewards of virtue; and in the second
place, of guardians of the law, the ten eldest being chosen; the general
superintendent of education shall also be member, as well the last
appointed as those who have been released from the office; and each of
them shall take with him as his companion young man, whomsoever he
chooses, between the ages of thirty and forty. These shall be always
holding conversation and discourse about the laws of their own city or
about any specially good ones which they may hear to be existing
elsewhere; also about kinds of knowledge which may appear to be of use
and will throw light upon the examination, or of which the want will
make the subject of laws dark and uncertain to them. Any knowledge of
this sort which the elders approve, the younger men shall learn with all
diligence; and if any one of those who have been invited appear to be
unworthy, the whole assembly shall blame him who invited him.
The rest of the city shall watch over those among the young men who
distinguish themselves, having an eye upon them, and especially
honouring them if they succeed, but dishonouring them above the rest if
they turn out to be inferior. This is the assembly to which he who has
visited the institutions of other men, on his return home shall
straightway go, and if he have discovered any one who has anything to
say about the enactment of laws or education or nurture, or if he have
himself made any observations, let him communicate his discoveries to
the whole assembly. And if he be seen to have come home neither better
nor worse, let him be praised at any rate for his enthusiasm; and if he
be much better, let him be praised so much the more; and not only while
he lives but after his death let the assembly honour him with fitting
honours.
But if on his return home he appear to have been corrupted, pretending
to be wise when he is not, let him hold no communication with any one,
whether young or old; and if he will hearken to the rulers, then he
shall be permitted to live as a private individual; but if he will not,
let him die, if he be convicted in a court of law of interfering about
education and the laws, And if he deserve to be indicted, and none of
the magistrates indict him, let that be counted as a disgrace to them
when the rewards of virtue are decided.
Let such be the character of the person who goes abroad, and let him go
abroad under these conditions. In the next place, the stranger who comes
from abroad should be received in a friendly spirit. Now there are four
kinds of strangers, of whom we must make some mention — the first is he
who comes and stays throughout the summer; this class are like birds of
passage, taking wing in pursuit of commerce, and flying over the sea to
other cities, while the season lasts; he shall be received in
market-places and harbours and public buildings, near the city but
outside, by those magistrates who are appointed to superintend these
matters; and they shall take care that a stranger, whoever he be, duly
receives justice; but he shall not be allowed to make any innovation.
They shall hold the intercourse with him which is necessary, and this
shall be as little as possible. The second kind is just a spectator who
comes to see with his eyes and hear with his ears the festivals of the
Muses; such ought to have entertainment provided them at the temples by
hospitable persons, and the priests and ministers of the temples should
see and attend to them. But they should not remain more than a
reasonable time; let them see and hear that for the sake of which they
came, and then go away, neither having suffered nor done any harm.
The priests shall be their judges, if any of them receive or do any
wrong up to the sum of fifty drachmae, but if any greater charge be
brought, in such cases the suit shall come before the wardens of the
agora. The third kind of stranger is he who comes on some public
business from another land, and is to be received with public honours.
He is to be received only by the generals and commanders of horse and
foot, and the host by whom he is entertained, in conjunction with the
Prytanes, shall have the sole charge of what concerns him. There is a
fourth dass of persons answering to our spectators, who come from
another land to look at ours. In the first place, such visits will be
rare, and the visitor should be at least fifty years of age; he may
possibly be wanting to see something that is rich and rare in other
states, or himself to show something in like manner to another city. Let
such an one, then, go unbidden to the doors of the wise and rich, being
one of them himself: let him go, for example, to the house of the
superintendent of education, confident that he is a fitting guest of
such a host, or let him go to the house of some of those who have gained
the prize of virtue and hold discourse with them, both learning from
them, and also teaching them; and when he has seen and heard all, he
shall depart, as a friend taking leave of friends, and be honoured by
them with gifts and suitable tributes of respect. These are the customs,
according to which our city should receive all strangers of either sex
who come from other countries, and should send forth her own citizens,
showing respect to Zeus, the God of hospitality, not forbidding
strangers at meals and sacrifices, as is the manner which prevails among
the children of the Nile, nor driving them away by savage proclamations.
When a man becomes surety, let him give the security in a distinct form,
acknowledging the whole transaction in a written document, and in the
presence of not less than three witnesses if the sum be under a thousand
drachmae, and of not less than five witnesses if the sum be above a
thousand drachmae. The agent of a dishonest or untrustworthy seller
shall himself be responsible; both the agent and the principal shall be
equally liable.
If a person wishes to find anything in the house of another, he shall
enter naked, or wearing only a short tunic and without a girdle, having
first taken an oath by the customary Gods that he expects to find it
there; he shall then make his search, and the other shall throw open his
house and allow him to search things both sealed and unsealed. And if a
person will not allow the searcher to make his search, he who is
prevented shall go to law with him, estimating the value of the goods
after which he is searching, and if the other be convicted he shall pay
twice the value of the article. If the master be absent from home, the
dwellers in the house shall let him search the unsealed property, and on
the sealed property the searcher shall set another seal, and shall
appoint any one whom he likes to guard them during five days; and if the
master of the house be absent during a longer time, he shall take with
him the wardens of the city, and so make his search, opening the sealed
property as well as the unsealed, and then, together with the members of
the family and the wardens of the city, he shall seal them up again as
they were before. There shall be a limit of time in the case of disputed
things, and he who has had possession of them during a certain time
shall no longer be liable to be disturbed. As to houses and lands there
can be no dispute in this state of ours; but if a man has any other
possessions which he has used and openly shown in the city and in the
agora and in the temples, and no one has put in a claim to them, and
some one says that he was looking for them during this time, and the
possessor is proved to have made no concealment, if they have continued
for a year, the one having the goods and the other looking for them, the
claim of the seeker shall not be allowed after the expiration of the
year; or if he does not use or show the lost property in the market or
in the city, but only in the country, and no one offers himself as the
owner during five years, at the expiration of the five years the claim
shall be barred for ever after; or if he uses them in the city but
within the house, then the appointed time of claiming the goods shall be
three years, or ten years if he has them in the country in private. And
if he has them in another land, there shall be no limit of time or
prescription, but whenever the owner finds them he may claim them.
If any one prevents another by force from being present at a trial,
whether a principal party or his witnesses; if the person prevented be a
slave, whether his own or belonging to another, the suit shall be
incomplete and invalid; but if he who is prevented be a freeman, besides
the suit being incomplete, the other who has prevented him shall be
imprisoned for a year, and shall be prosecuted for kidnapping by any one
who pleases. And if any one hinders by force a rival competitor in
gymnastic or music, or any other sort of contest, from being present at
the contest, let him who has a mind inform the presiding judges, and
they shall liberate him who is desirous of competing; and if they are
not able, and he who hinders the other from competing wins the prize,
then they shall give the prize of victory to him who is prevented, and
inscribe him as the conqueror in any temples which he pleases; and he
who hinders the other shall not be permitted to make any offering or
inscription having reference to that contest, and in any case he shall
be liable for damages, whether he be defeated or whether he conquer.
If any one knowingly receives anything which has been stolen, he shall
undergo the same punishment as the thief, and if a man receives an exile
he shall be punished with death. Every man should regard the friend and
enemy of the state as his own friend and enemy; and if any one makes
peace or war with another on his own account, and without the authority
of the state, he, like the receiver of the exile, shall undergo the
penalty of death. And if any fraction of the City declare war or peace
against any, the generals shall indict the authors of this proceeding,
and if they are convicted death shall be the penalty. Those who serve
their country ought to serve without receiving gifts, and there ought to
be no excusing or approving the saying, “Men should receive gifts as the
reward of good, but not of evil deeds”; for to know which we are doing,
and to stand fast by our knowledge, is no easy matter. The safest course
is to obey the law which says, “Do no service for a bribe,” and let him
who disobeys, if he be convicted, simply die. With a view to taxation,
for various reasons, every man ought to have had his property valued:
and the tribesmen should likewise bring a register of the yearly produce
to the wardens of the country, that in this way there may be two
valuations; and the public officers may use annuary whichever on
consideration they deem the best, whether they prefer to take a certain
portion of the whole value, or of the annual revenue, after subtracting
what is paid to the common tables.
Touching offerings to the Gods, a moderate man should observe moderation
in what he offers. Now the land and the hearth of the house of all men
is sacred to all Gods; wherefore let no man dedicate them a second time
to the Gods. Gold and silver, whether possessed by private persons or in
temples, are in other cities provocative of envy, and ivory, the product
of a dead body, is not a proper offering; brass and iron, again, are
instruments of war; but of wood let a man bring what offerings he likes,
provided it be a single block, and in like manner of stone, to the
public temples; of woven work let him not offer more than one woman can
execute in a month. White is a colour suitable to the Gods, especially
in woven works, but dyes should only be used for the adornments of war.
The most divine of gifts are birds and images, and they should be such
as one painter can execute in a single day. And let all other offerings
follow a similar rule.
Now that the whole city has been divided into parts of which the nature
and number have been described, and laws have been given about all the
most important contracts as far as this was possible, the next thing
will be to have justice done. The first of the courts shall consist of
elected judges, who shall be chosen by the plaintiff and the defendant
in common: these shall be called arbiters rather than judges. And in the
second court there shall be judges of the villages and tribes
corresponding to the twelvefold division of the land, and before these
the litigants shall go to contend for greater damages, if the suit be
not decided before the first judges; the defendant, if he be defeated
the second time, shall pay a fifth more than the damages mentioned in
the indictment; and if he find fault with his judges and would try a
third time, let him carry the suit before the select judges, and if he
be again defeated, let him pay the whole of the damages and half as much
again. And the plaintiff, if when defeated before the first judges he
persist in going on to the second, shall if he wins receive in addition
to the damages a fifth part more, and if defeated he shall pay a like
sum; but if he is not satisfied with the previous decision, and will
insist on proceeding to a third court, then if he win he shall receive
from the defendant the amount of the damages and, as I said before, half
as much again, and the plaintiff, if he lose, shall pay half of the
damages claimed, Now the assignment by lot of judges to courts and the
completion of the number of them, and the appointment of servants to the
different magistrates, and the times at which the several causes should
be heard, and the votings and delays, and all the things that
necessarily concern suits, and the order of causes, and the time in
which answers have to be put in and parties are to appear — of these and
other things akin to these we have indeed already spoken, but there is
no harm in repeating what is right twice or thrice: All lesser and
easier matters which the elder legislator has omitted may be supplied by
the younger one. Private courts will be sufficiently regulated in this
way, and the public and state courts, and those which the magistrates
must use in the administration of their several offices, exist in many
other states. Many very respectable institutions of this sort have been
framed by good men, and from them the guardians of the law may by
reflection derive what is necessary, for the order of our new state,
considering and correcting them, and bringing them to the test of
experience, until every detail appears to be satisfactorily determined;
and then putting the final seal upon them, and making them irreversible,
they shall use them for ever afterwards. As to what relates to the
silence of judges and the abstinence from words of evil omen and the
reverse, and the different notions of the just and good and honourable
which exist in our: own as compared with other states, they have been
partly mentioned already, and another part of them will be mentioned
hereafter as we draw near the end. To all these matters he who would be
an equal judge, shall justly look, and he shall possess writings about
them that he may learn them. For of all kinds of knowledge the knowledge
of good laws has the greatest power of improving the learner; otherwise
there would be no meaning the divine and admirable law possessing a name
akin to mind (nous, nomos). And of all other words, such as the praises
and censures of individuals which occur in poetry and also in prose,
whether written down or uttered in daily conversation, whether men
dispute about them in the spirit of contention or weakly assent to them,
as is often the case — of all these the one sure test is the writings of
the legislator, which the righteous judge ought to have in his mind as
the antidote of all other words, and thus make himself and the city
stand upright, procuring for the good the continuance and increase of
justice, and for the bad, on the other hand, a conversion from ignorance
and intemperance, and in general from all unrighteousness, as far as
their evil minds can be healed, but to those whose web of life is in
reality finished, giving death, which is the only remedy for souls in
their condition, as I may say truly again and again. And such judges and
chiefs of judges will be worthy of receiving praise from the whole city.
When the suits of the year are completed the following laws shall
regulate their execution: In the first place, the judge shall assign to
the party who wins the suit the whole property of him who loses, with
the exception of mere necessaries, and the assignment shall be made
through the herald immediately after each decision in the hearing of the
judges; and when the month arrives following the month in which the
courts are sitting (unless the gainer of the suit has been previously
satisfied), the court shall follow up the case, and hand over to the
winner the goods of the loser; but if they find that he has not the
means of paying, and the sum deficient is not less than a drachma, the
insolvent person shall not have any right of going to law with any other
man until he have satisfied the debt of the winning party; but other
persons shall still have the right of bringing suits against him. And if
any one after he is condemned refuses to acknowledge the authority which
condemned him, let the magistrates who are thus deprived of their
authority bring him before the court of the guardians of the law, and if
he be cast, let him be punished with death, as a subverter of the whole
state and of the laws.
Thus a man is born and brought up, and after this manner he begets and
brings up his own children, and has his share of dealings with other
men, and suffers if he has done wrong to any one, and receives
satisfaction if he has been wronged, and so at length in due time he
grows old under the protection of the laws, and his end comes in the
order of nature. Concerning the dead of either sex, the religious
ceremonies which may fittingly be performed, whether appertaining to the
Gods of the underworld or of this, shall be decided by the interpreters
with absolute authority. Their sepulchres are not to be in places which
are fit for cultivation, and there shall be no monuments in such spots,
either large or small, but they shall occupy that part of the country
which is naturally adapted for receiving and concealing the bodies of
the dead with as little hurt as possible to the living. No man, living
or dead, shall deprive the living of the sustenance which the earth,
their fosterparent, is naturally inclined to provide for them. And let
not the mound be piled higher than would be the work of five men
completed in five days; nor shall the stone which is placed over the
spot be larger than would be sufficient to receive the praises of the
dead included in four heroic lines. Nor shall the laying out of the dead
in the house continue for a longer time than is sufficient to
distinguish between him who is in a trance only and him who is really
dead, and speaking generally, the third day after death will be a fair
time for carrying out the body to the sepulchre. Now we must believe the
legislator when he tells us that the soul is in all respects superior to
the body, and that even in life what makes each one us to be what we are
is only the soul; and that the body follows us about in the likeness of
each of us, and therefore, when we are dead, the bodies of the dead are
quite rightly said to be our shades or images; for the true and immortal
being of each one of us which is called the soul goes on her way to
other Gods, before them to give an account — which is an inspiring hope
to the good, but very terrible to the bad, as the laws of our fathers
tell us; and they also say that not much can be done in the way of
helping a man after he is dead. But the living — he should be helped by
all his kindred, that while in life he may be the holiest and justest of
men, and after death may have no great sins to be punished in the world
below. If this be true, a man ought not to waste his substance under the
idea that all this lifeless mass of flesh which is in process of burial
is connected with him; he should consider that the son, or brother, or
the beloved one, whoever he may be, whom he thinks he is laying in the
earth, has gone away to complete and fulfil his own destiny, and that
his duty is rightly to order the present, and to spend moderately on the
lifeless altar of the Gods below. But the legislator does not intend
moderation to be take, in the sense of meanness. Let the law, then, be
as follows: The expenditure on the entire funeral of him who is of the
highest class shall not exceed five minae; and for him who is of the
second class, three minae, and for him who is of the third class, two
minae, and for him, who is of the fourth class, one mina, will be a fair
limit of expense. The guardians of the law ought to take especial care
of the different ages of life, whether childhood, or manhood, or any
other age. And at the end of all, let there be some one guardian of the
law presiding, who shall be chosen by the friends of the deceased to
superintend, and let it be glory to him to manage with fairness and
moderation what relates to the dead, and a discredit to him if they are
not well managed. Let the laying out and other ceremonies be in
accordance with custom, but to the statesman who adopts custom as his
law we must give way in certain particulars. It would be monstrous for
example that he should command any man to weep or abstain from weeping
over the dead; but he may forbid cries of lamentation, and not allow the
voice of the mourner to be heard outside the house; also, he may forbid
the bringing of the dead body into the open streets, or the processions
of mourners in the streets, and may require that before daybreak they
should be outside the city. Let these, then, be our laws relating to
such matters, and let him who obeys be free from penalty; but he who
disobeys even a single guardian of the law shall be punished by them all
with a fitting penalty. Other modes of burial, or again the denial of
burial, which is to be refused in the case of robbers of temples and
parricides and the like, have been devised and are embodied in the
preceding laws, so that now our work of legislation is pretty nearly at
an end; but in all cases the end does not consist in doing something or
acquiring something or establishing something — the end will be attained
and finally accomplished, when we have provided for the perfect and
lasting continuance of our institutions until then our creation is
incomplete.
Cle. That is very good Stranger; but I wish you would tell me more
clearly what you mean.
Ath. O Cleinias, many things of old time were well said and sung; and
the saying about the Fates was one of them.
Cle. What is it?
Ath. The saying that Lachesis or the giver of the lots is the first of
them, and that Clotho or the spinster is the second of them, and that
Atropos or the unchanging one is the third of them; and that she is the
preserver of the things which we have spoken, and which have been
compared in a figure to things woven by fire, they both (i.e., Atropos
and the fire) producing the quality of unchangeableness. I am speaking
of the things which in a state and government give not only health and
salvation to the body, but law, or rather preservation of the law, in
the soul; and, if I am not mistaken, this seems to be still wanting in
our laws: we have still to see how we can implant in them this
irreversible nature.
Cle. It will be no small matter if we can only discover how such a
nature can be implanted in anything.
Ath. But it certainly can be; so much I clearly see.
Cle. Then let us not think of desisting until we have imparted this
quality to our laws; for it is ridiculous, after a great deal of labour
has been spent, to place a thing at last on an insecure foundation.
Megillus. I approve of your suggestion, and am quite of the same mind
with you.
Cle. Very good: And now what, according to you, is to be the salvation
of our government and of our laws, and how is it to be effected?
Ath. Were we not saying that there must be in our city a council which
was to be of this sort: The ten oldest guardians of the law, and all
those who have obtained prizes of virtue, were to meet in the same
assembly, and the council was also to include those who had visited
foreign countries in the hope of hearing something that might be of use
in the preservation of the laws, and who, having come safely home, and
having been tested in these same matters, had proved themselves to be
worthy to take part in the assembly; — each of the members was to select
some young man of not less than thirty years of age, he himself judging
in the, first instance whether the young man was worthy by nature and
education, and then suggesting him to the others, and if he seemed to
them also to be worthy they were to adopt him; but if not, the decision
at which they arrived was to be kept a secret from the citizens at
large; and, more especially, from the rejected candidate. The meeting of
the council was to be held early in the morning, when everybody was most
at leisure from all other business, whether public or private — was not
something of this sort said by us before?
Cle. True.
Ath. Then, returning to the council, I would say further, that if we let
it down to be the anchor of the state, our city, having everything which
is suitable to her, will preserve all that we wish to preserve.
Cle. What do you mean?
Ath. Now is the time for me to speak the truth in all earnestness.
Cle. Well said, and I hope that you will fulfil your intention.
Ath. Know, Cleinias, that everything, in all that it does, has a natural
saviour, as of an animal the soul and the head are the chief saviours.
Cle. Once more, what do you mean?
Ath. The well-being of those two is obviously the preservation of every
living thing.
Cle. How is that?
Ath. The soul, besides other things, contains mind, and the head,
besides other things, contains sight and hearing; and the mind, mingling
with the noblest of the senses, and becoming one with them, may be truly
called the salvation of all.
Cle. Yes, Quite so.
Ath. Yes, indeed; but with what is that intellect concerned which,
mingling with the senses, is the salvation of ships in storms as well as
in fair weather? In a ship, when the pilot and the sailors unite their
perceptions with the piloting mind, do they not save both themselves and
their craft?
Cle. Very true.
Ath. We do not want many illustrations about such matters: What aim
would the general of an army, or what aim would a physician propose to
himself, if he were seeking to attain salvation?
Cle. Very good.
Ath. Does not the general aim at victory and superiority in war, and do
not the physician and his assistants aim at producing health in the
body?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And a physician who is ignorant about the body, that is to say, who
knows not that which we just now called health, or a general who knows
not victory, or any others who are ignorant of the particulars of the
arts which we mentioned, cannot be said to have understanding about any
of these matters.
Cle. They cannot.
Ath. And what would you say of the state? If a person proves to be
ignorant of the aim to which the statesman should look, ought he, in the
first place, to be called a ruler at all; further, will he ever be able
to preserve that of which he does not even know the aim?
Cle. Impossible.
Ath. And therefore, if our settlement of the country is to be perfect,
we ought to have some institution, which, as I was saying, will tell
what is the aim of the state, and will inform us how we are to attain
this, and what law or what man will advise us to that end. Any state
which has no such institution is likely to be devoid of mind and sense,
and in all her actions will proceed by mere chance.
Cle. Very true.
Ath. In which, then, of the parts or institutions of the state is any
such guardian power to be found? Can we say?
Cle. I am not quite certain, Stranger; but I have a suspicion that you
are referring to the assembly which you just now said was to meet at
night.
Ath. You understand me perfectly, Cleinias; and we must assume, as the
argument iniplies, that this council possesses all virtue; and the
beginning of virtue is not to make mistakes by guessing many things, but
to look steadily at one thing, and on this to fix all our aims.
Cle. Quite true.
Ath. Then now we shall see why there is nothing wonderful in states
going astray — the reason is that their legislators have such different
aims; nor is there anything wonderful in some laying down as their rule
of justice, that certain individuals should bear rule in the state,
whether they be good or bad, and others that the citizens should be
rich, not caring whether they are the slaves of other men or not.
The tendency of others, again, is towards freedom; and some legislate
with a view to two things at once — they want to be at the same time
free and the lords of other states; but the wisest men, as they deem
themselves to be, look to all these and similar aims, and there is no
one of them which they exclusively honour, and to which they would have
all things look.
Cle. Then, Stranger, our former assertion will hold, for we were saying
that laws generally should look to one thing only; and this, as we
admitted, was rightly said to be virtue.
Ath. Yes.
Cle. And we said that virtue was of four kinds?
Ath. Quite true.
Cle. And that mind was the leader of the four, and that to her the three
other virtues and all other things ought to have regard?
Ath. You follow me capitally, Cleinias, and I would ask you to follow me
to the end, for we have already said that the mind of the pilot, the
mind of the physician and of the general look to that one thing to which
they ought to look; and now we may turn to mind political, of which, as
of a human creature, we will ask a question: O wonderful being, and to
what are you looking? The physician is able to tell his single aim in
life, but you, the superior, as you declare yourself to be, of all
intelligent beings, when you are asked are not able to tell. Can you,
Megillus, and you, Cleinias, say distinctly what is the aim of mind
political, in return for the many explanations of things which I have
given you?
Cle. We cannot, Stranger.
Ath. Well, but ought we not to desire to see it, and to see where it is
to be found?
Cle. For example, where?
Ath. For example, we were saying that there are four kinds of virtue,
and as there are four of them, each of them must be one.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And further, all four of them we call one; for we say that courage
is virtue, and that prudence is virtue, and the same of the two others,
as if they were in reality not many but one, that is, virtue.
Cle. Quite so.
Ath. There is no difficulty in seeing in what way the two differ from
one another, and have received two names, and so of the rest. But there
is more difficulty in explaining why we call these two and the rest of
them by the single name of virtue.
Cle. How do you mean?
Ath. I have no difficulty in explaining what I mean. Let us distribute
the subject questions and answers.
Cle. Once more, what do you mean?
Ath. Ask me what is that one thing which call virtue, and then again
speak of as two, one part being courage and the other wisdom. I will
tell you how that occurs: One of them has to do with fear; in this the
beasts also participate, and quite young children — I mean courage; for
a courageous temper is a gift of nature and not of reason. But without
reason there never has been, or is, or will be a wise and understanding
soul; it is of a different nature.
Cle. That is true.
Ath. I have now told you in what way the two are different, and do you
in return tell me in what way they are one and the same. Suppose that I
ask you in what way the four are one, and when you have answered me, you
will have a right to ask of me in return in what way they are four; and
then let us proceed to enquire whether in the case of things which have
a name and also a definition to them, true knowledge consists in knowing
the name only and not the definition. Can he who is good for anything be
ignorant of all this without discredit where great and glorious truths
are concerned?
Cle. I suppose not.
Ath. And is there anything greater to the legislator and the guardian of
the law, and to him who thinks that he excels all other men in virtue,
and has won the palm of excellence, that these very qualities of which
we are now speaking — courage, temperance, wisdom, justice?
Cle. How can there be anything greater?
Ath. And ought not the interpreters, the teachers the lawgivers, the
guardians of the other citizens, to excel the rest of mankind, and
perfectly to show him who desires to learn and know or whose evil
actions require to be punished and reproved, what is the nature of
virtue and vice? Or shall some poet who has found his way into the city,
or some chance person who pretends to be an instructor of youth, show
himself to be better than him who has won the prize for every virtue?
And can we wonder that when the guardians are not adequate in speech or
action, and have no adequate knowledge of virtue, the city being
unguarded should experience the common fate of cities in our day?
Cle. Wonder! no.
Ath. Well, then, must we do as we said? Or can we give our guardians a
more precise knowledge of virtue in speech and action than the many
have? or is there any way in which our city can be made to resemble the
head and senses of rational beings because possessing such a guardian
power?
Cle. What, Stranger, is the drift of your comparison?
Ath. Do we not see that the city is the trunk, and are not the younger
guardians, who are chosen for their natural gifts, placed in the head of
the state, having their souls all full of eyes, with which they look
about the whole city? They keep watch and hand over their perceptions to
the memory, and inform the elders of all that happens in the city; and
those whom we compared to the mind, because they have many wise thoughts
— that is to say, the old mentake counsel and making use of the younger
men as their ministers, and advising with them — in this way both
together truly preserve the whole state: Shall this or some other be the
order of our state? Are all our citizens to be equal in acquirements, or
shall there be special persons among them who have received a more
careful training and education?
Cle. That they should be equal, my; good, sir, is impossible.
Ath. Then we ought to proceed to some more exact training than any which
has preceded.
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. And must not that of which we are in need be the one to which we
were just now alluding?
Cle. Very true.
Ath. Did we not say that the workman or guardian, if he be perfect in
every respect, ought not only to be able to see the many aims, but he
should press onward to the one? this he should know, and knowing, order
all things with a view to it.
Cle. True.
Ath. And can any one have a more exact way of considering or
contemplating. anything, than the being able to look at one idea
gathered from many different things?
Cle. Perhaps not.
Ath. Not “Perhaps not,” but “Certainly not,” my good sir, is the right
answer. There never has been a truer method than this discovered by any
man.
Cle. I bow to your authority, Stranger; let us proceed in the way which
you propose.
Ath. Then, as would appear, we must compel the guardians of our divine
state to perceive, in the first place, what that principle is which is
the same in all the four — the same, as we affirm, in courage and in
temperance, and in justice and in prudence, and which, being one, we
call as we ought, by the single name of virtue. To this, my friends, we
will, if you please, hold fast, and not let go until we have
sufficiently explained what that is to which we are to look, whether to
be regarded as one, or as a whole, or as both, or in whatever way. Are
we likely ever to be in a virtuous condition, if we cannot tell whether
virtue is many, or four, or one? Certainly, if we take counsel among
ourselves, we shall in some way contrive that this principle has a place
amongst us; but if you have made up your mind that we should let the
matter alone, we will.
Cle. We must not, Stranger, by the God of strangers I swear that we must
not, for in our opinion you speak most truly; but we should like to know
how you will accomplish your purpose.
Ath. Wait a little before you ask; and let us, first of all, be quite
agreed with one another that the purpose has to be accomplished.
Cle. Certainly, it ought to be, if it can be. Ast. Well, and about the
good and the honourable, are we to take the same view? Are our guardians
only to know that each of them is many, or, also how and in what way
they are one?
Cle. They must consider also in what sense they are one.
Ath. And are they to consider only, and to be unable to set forth what
they think?
Cle. Certainly not; that would be the state of a slave.
Ath. And may not the same be said of all good things — that the true
guardians of the laws ought to know the truth about them, and to be able
to interpret them in words, and carry them out in action, judging of
what is and what is not well, according to nature?
Cle. Certainly.
Ath. Is not the knowledge of the Gods which we have set forth with so
much zeal one of the noblest sorts of knowledge; — to know that they
are, and know how great is their power, as far as in man lies? do indeed
excuse the mass of the citizens, who only follow the voice of the laws,
but we refuse to admit as guardians any who do not labour to obtain
every possible evidence that there is respecting the Gods; our city is
forbidden and not allowed to choose as a guardian of the law, or to
place in the select order of virtue, him who is not an inspired man, and
has not laboured at these things.
Cle. It is certainly just, as you say, that he who is indolent about
such matters or incapable should be rejected, and that things honourable
should be put away from him.
Ath. Are we assured that there are two things which lead men to believe
in the Gods, as we have already stated?
Cle. What are they?
Ath. One is the argument about the soul, which has been already
mentioned — that it is the eldest, and most divine of all things, to
which motion attaining generation gives perpetual existence; the other
was an argument from the order of the motion of the stars, and of all
things under the dominion of the mind which ordered the universe. If a
man look upon the world not lightly or ignorantly, there was never any
one so godless who did not experience an effect opposite to that which
the many imagine. For they think that those who handle these matters by
the help of astronomy, and the accompanying arts of demonstration, may
become godless, because they see, as far as they can see, things
happening by necessity, and not by an intelligent will accomplishing
good.
Cle. But what is the fact?
Ath. Just the opposite, as I said, of the opinion which once prevailed
among men, that the sun and stars are without soul. Even in those days
men wondered about them, and that which is now ascertained was then
conjectured by some who had a more exact knowledge of them — that if
they had been things without soul, and had no mind, they could never
have moved with numerical exactness so wonderful; and even at that time
some ventured to hazard the conjecture that mind was the orderer of the
universe. But these same persons again mistaking the nature of the soul,
which they conceived to be younger and not older than the body, once
more overturned the world, or rather, I should say, themselves; for the
bodies which they saw moving in heaven all appeared to be full of
stones, and earth, and many other lifeless substances, and to these they
assigned the causes of all things. Such studies gave rise to much
atheism and perplexity, and the poets took occasion to be abusive —
comparing the philosophers to she-dogs uttering vain howlings, and
talking other nonsense of the same sort. But now, as I said, the case is
reversed.
Cle. How so?
Ath. No man can be a true worshipper of the Gods who does not know these
two principles — that the soul is the eldest of all things which are
born, and is immortal and rules over all bodies; moreover, as I have now
said several times, he who has not contemplated the mind of nature which
is said to exist in the stars, and gone through the previous training,
and seen the connection of music with these things, and harmonized them
all with laws and institutions, is not able to give a reason of such
things as have a reason. And he who is unable to acquire this in
addition to the ordinary virtues of a citizen, can hardly be a good
ruler of a whole state; but he should be the subordinate of other
rulers. Wherefore, Cleinias and Megillus, let us consider whether we may
not add to all the other laws which we have discussed this further one —
that the nocturnal assembly of the magistrates, which has also shared in
the whole scheme of education proposed by us, shall be a guard set
according to law for the salvation of the state. Shall we propose this?
Cle. Certainly, my good friend, we will if the thing is in any degree
possible.
Ath. Let us make a common effort to gain such an object; for I too will
gladly share in the attempt. Of these matters I have had much
experience, and have often considered them, and I dare say that I shall
be able to find others who will also help.
Cle. I agree, Stranger, that we should proceed along the road in which
God is guiding us; and how we can proceed rightly has now to be
investigated and explained.
Ath. O Megillus and Cleinias, about these matters we cannot legislate
further until the council is constituted; when that is done, then we
will determine what authority they shall have of their own; but the
explanation of how this is all to be ordered would only be given rightly
in a long discourse.
Cle. What do you mean, and what new thing is this?
Ath. In the first place, a list would have to be made out of those who
by their ages and studies and dispositions and habits are well fitted
for the duty of a guardian. In the next place, it will not be easy for
them to discover themselves what they ought to learn, or become the
disciple of one who has already made the discovery. Furthermore, to
write down the times at which, and during which, they ought to receive
the several kinds of instruction, would be a vain thing; for the
learners themselves do not know what is learned to advantage until the
knowledge which is the result of learning has found a place in the soul
of each. And so these details, although they could not be truly said to
be secret, might be said to be incapable of being stated beforehand,
because when stated they would have no meaning.
Cle. What then are we to do, Stranger, under these circumstances?
Ath. As the proverb says, the answer is no secret, but open to all of
us: We must risk the whole on the chance of throwing, as they say,
thrice six or thrice ace, and I am willing to share with you the danger
by stating and explaining to you my views about education and nurture,
which is the question coming to the surface again. The danger is not a
slight or ordinary one, and I would advise you, Cleinias, in particular,
to see to the matter; for if you order rightly the city of the Magnetes,
or whatever name God may give it, you will obtain the greatest glory; or
at any rate you will be thought the most courageous of men in the
estimation of posterity. Dear companions, if this our divine assembly
can only be established, to them we will hand over the city; none of the
present company of legislators, as I may call them, would hesitate about
that. And the state will be perfected and become a waking reality, which
a little while ago we attempted to create as a dream and in idea only,
mingling together reason and mind in one image, in the hope that our
citizens might be duly mingled and rightly educated; and being educated,
and dwelling in the citadel of the land, might become perfect guardians,
such as we have never seen in all our previous life, by reason of the
saving virtue which is in them.
Meg. Dear Cleinias, after all that has been said, either we must detain
the Stranger, and by supplications and in all manner of ways make him
share in the foundation of the city, or we must give up the undertaking.
Cle. Very true, Megillus; and you must join with me in detaining him.
Meg. I will.
THE END